Hoverfly Genera

Acrostic hoverfly genera

Each slide explores a different genus: The genus name is split such that each letter forms a sentence, highlighting unique features of the incredible syrphids within each group, posted alongside artwork and habitat preferences.

All the photographs and artwork featured are my own, making this a truly personal project.
Just added Scaeva 27th November, previously Syrphus,Volucella and Helophilus. This is just the beginning! 

Thank you for your support—every visit helps in keeping this project thriving. 
Drop by often and enjoy the journey into the world of hoverflies genera!

Scaeva

The HoverflySpotter logo

What Hoverfly species are to be found in the logo below?

The site has been up a few months now and let me start by thanking all those people that have visited, followed, subscribed and even re-visited, it really does help the channel grow and inspire me to produce more content. If you have not followed or subscribed, please consider it.

🎄 Something a bit lighter today, a little Christmas challenge. 🎅

For those of you who have noticed the logo to the site or the little favicon icon specific to the internet page on your desktop, you might have been wondering what hoverfly species this is…. Well, its no particular species at all it is a mishmash of many species all amalgamated into one.

 I wonder if you can guess which species……. Answers below… 📝

Card Game Nature Fluxx

Nature Fluxx the Card Game

Designed by Andrew Looney and Alison Frone.

Illustration by Derek Ring and Alison Frone.

Publisher Looney Labs.

Player 1-6 Ages 8+ Time to play 10-40 minutes.

www.looneylabs.com

Nature Fluxx is an ecology-themed variant to the popular card game Fluxx, published by Looney Labs and released in 2015. This is a much smaller game than Wingspan and comes in a very compact 10 by 13cm box with 100 cards and 1 sheet of instructions. If you are looking for that stocking filler for Christmas this might be the game. It also comes with a disclosure that 5% of proceeds are donated to environmental groups! 

It’s a very easy game to pick up - shuffle the deck and deal 3 cards to each player. Put the basic rules card on the table and then pick a player to go first. Their first task is to draw 1 and play 1 and that’s where the fun starts. It’s a game that quickly turns into this chaos where the rules are forever changing. The objective of the game is to meet the current goal using your keeper cards, but nobody can win unless there is a goal played. The goals also constantly change, and the next rule change or action might determine whether you win or lose. But beware there are creepers in the deck which can prevent any player from winning not just you!

Bird Board Game Wingspan

Wingspan the board game

Designed by Elizabeth Hargrave

Illustrated by Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria, Martinez Jasamillo and Beth Sobel

Publisher Stonemaier Games

Players: 1-5 Ages 10+ Time to play 40-70minutes

With Christmas fast approaching I thought it would be good this month to do some reviews which may help with that Christmas shopping. The original Wingspan I bought pre-Christmas many years ago, but the expansions have been kindly bought for me in the following Christmases and how delighted have I been to get them. Unboxing a game is exciting—just search "unboxing board games" on YouTube to see its popularity.

Nature themed board games

Introduction to board games:

I have been a board game player ever since I was young. I recall fondly playing cards with my grandma and learning all the different variations of card games. Later I learned how to play draughts and chess with dad, not that I was any good at them. Then there were the family holidays on the east coast where on a rainy day we would play monopoly, dominos and other such traditional games. But it was at the start of lockdown when I was looking for other things that me and my beloved could do to get us through the crisis, that we discovered themed board games.

After watching videos on Dice Tower, I came across several board games that seemed exciting, and that I thought we would both enjoy. During one of those times when we were allowed to go places, instead of going to the coast we went to a board game café in Sheffield to play Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne. I remember it well because it was the first time I had a haircut in months as we walked past a barber shop along the way, my local barber having not returned post lockdown. The café was great, the food delicious, and the staff could not have been more friendly and helped us figure out what can be quite complex games.

Ticket to Ride board game set up

Hoverflies of Britain and NW Europe

Hoverflies of Britain and North-West Europe: A Photographic guide

Sander Bot and Frank Van de Meutter.

Bloomsbury Wildlife (pbk) published 2023.

400 pages, 1797 colour photos, illustrations, and distribution maps.

ISBN 978-1-3994-0245-3

With Christmas drawing closer you might be looking for that special gift to give a budding naturalist or entomologist, well stick around this might that book.

Hoverfly White-clubbed Glasswing (Scaeva pyrastri)

White-clubbed Glasswing (Scaeva pyrastri) Wing length 9.25-11.25. Flight May-Mid August

Species of the week –1st December

The first thing you will notice if you spot this hoverfly, are its abdominal markings. They remind me of hockey sticks, but the shape is often referred to as clubbed or bowed. Some prefer to refer to them as smoothwing, others glasswing due to the lack of microtrichia (tiny hairs) on the wings. There are 5 species listed for the British Isles but there are only 2 that you are likely to come across anytime May to mid-August. These are pryrastri and selentica the main difference being white/cream abdominal markings for the former and yellow for the latter. 

If this hoverfly seems familiar, even if you haven’t found one in the wild, it’s probably because you have seen the 1st edition of Britain’s Hoverflies by S. Ball and R. Morris published by WILDguides, where it is featured on the front cover. 

Autumn's Joy

An Autumn Poem:

This poem was inspired by a walk to my parents earlier this month.

Autumn returns, with rustling leaves,
birdsong drifts where summer left.
A jay glides past with nuts in its crop,
Caching food for colder weather.

Bright Nights Festival

Thought for the week: Nature Art

Every year I look forward the light festival that comes to town, this is the eighth year visiting Barnsley.

The reason I look forward to it is that these events are often full of nature inspired installations that blend art and nature beautifully. It also brings the whole town together, as long as it’s not wet or clashes with an England football match as it did one year. It can bring people of all ages into town even though its dark.

I love to see how art as a medium can be used to illustrate ecological concepts and environmental concerns of the day. I think it is important that we stop and look at what those issues might be, and art is a super medium to bring those concerns to life without judgement, if the message is clear. These installations are often interactive yet stimulating and I come away with a sense of wellbeing and fresh ideas for myself and aspire to be more creative going forward.

Last weekend there were more people at the Bright Nights than I have seen previously so well done the organisers, I even had to queue to see some of the installations. 

Hoverfly Sightings W/C 17th November 2025

The Search for Hoverflies

As the days get shorter, colder and wetter, it’s getting more difficult to find any hoverflies so did I succeed?

22nd November

British Naturalists’ Association (BNA) field meeting at Broomhill flash.

The Myth of Bugonia

Thought of the Week:  Now for something completely different:

Biblical Scripture: Judges 14:14
“Out of the eater came forth meat; and out of the strong came forth sweetness.”

If you are curious as to what the logo for Lyles’s Golden Syrup and scripture from the bible Judges 14:14, has to do with hoverflies then please click the read more below……

Hoverfly - Common Dainty (Baccha elongata)

Common Dainty (Baccha elongata) Wing length 4-8.25mm. Flight Apr-Nov

Species of the week – 10th November.

The first thing to notice about these hoverflies is that they look like no other hoverfly. They have this slender body with a wasp waist and hover around plants without visiting any actual flowers, or at least rarely. You might even wonder if they are in fact a hoverfly at all? Well yes, they are, they have the definitive vena spuria, the false unconnected vein, typical of all hoverflies, Syrphidae.

Hoverflies Art: Metamorphosis of the Rat-tailed fly

Metamorphosis of the Rat-tailed fly (Eristalis tenax)

Following on from my historical art article named ‘Volucellae and Bees’ I have found another piece of art illustrating hoverflies, which I wanted to share.

This is from a French book by Emile Blanchard titled ‘Metamorphoses, mœurs et instincts des insects (Insectes, myriapodes, ararchines, crustaces)’ Published: Paris, G. Baillière: in 1868, although I have only seen the 2nd edition published in 1877.

Metamorphosis in insects is the book’s subject matter written 24 years before Beddard’s book on mimicry called Animal coloration. As I do not read French the starting point for my interest was the English version of the book, but I did use translation software to read Blanchard’s original text about Syrphidae which was fascinating.

E. Blanchard’s book was adapted for English readers by P. M. Duncan F.R.S titled ‘The transformations (or metamorphoses) of insects: (Insecta, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Crustacea.)’ and is a compilation of works from other scientists of the era George Newport, Charles Darwin but mainly the work of E.Blanchard.  Publication/Creation: London, Cassell Petter & Galpin, 1882.

I have extracted from the book one plate called the ‘Metamorphoses of a rat-tailed fly’ which I would like to discuss in more detail.

Hoverfly Autumn’s Joy

Hoverfly Sightings W/C 3rd November 2025

7^th November

Barnsley Naturalist (BNATs) field meeting: Drizzle on the car windscreen enroute, but it cleared up and ‘turned out nice again’ by the end of the fungi foray. Was another mild day.

Please note this list of records below, is my own taken at the event and that there will be a much more comprehensive list created by Michelle, the BNATs recorder in a few days, go to the BNATs Facebook page for more information. 

 

Hoverfly Common Dronefly (Eristalis tenax)

Common Dronefly (Eristalis tenax) Size 9.75-13.0mm. Flight Mar-Nov.

Species of the week – 3^rd November.

This is a hoverfly that, as the name suggests, is common and can be spotted any month of the year. As I write this in November it is one of the few hoverflies that I can come across on a milder day, because females are known to hibernate. In Spring it is often one of the first hoverflies I see hovering in a shaft of sunlight, lekking over a dandelion flower in the hope of mating with a passing female. This hoverfly is known to dangle its legs as it hovers, so is identifiable in the air even if out of reach to see its markings. Come Autumn go to any Ivy bush in the sun and I am sure to see one of them, along with its cousin the Tapered Dronefly (Eristalis pertinax).  

Facts about Hoverflies Volume 1

Things to know about hoverflies Volume 1.

1. Hoverflies can be spotted in most habitats; wetlands, meadows, brown-field sites, woodland and their edges, hedges, parks, gardens, coastal, uplands and marshes. Hoverflies are not so good in cold areas of the planet like the poles or in very hot places like deserts, in fact none are known to exist in Antarctica.
   

Junk Bug

Is it an egg?……..Is it gall?........Is it a pupa?
No, it’s a Junk Bug.

As its Halloween tonight I thought we would delve into the eerie story of the Junk Bug.... 🎃 💀 🦇

 

It was early October, not a month to go looking for insects, the days are drawing shorter and the nights colder. But if you look carefully, you might find something eating aphids on an autumn afternoon. This was one such afternoon. I saw what looked like a speck of dirt on a leaf which needed closer inspection. My first thoughts were it was going to be a micro moth pupa, a gall, or an egg - it turned out to be none of them.

The Hoverfly Spotter’s Solway Birdwatching Holiday

Trip to Scotland 23^rd-26^th October 2025 

Sheffield & Chesterfield RSPB Groups.

Organised by C.Brydone.

My account of sightings and observations from the trip and is by no means a full list of all the sightings or species seen by the group. The photographs are my own unless otherwise indicated, taken with my mobile phone.

Panoramic view of Mersehead

Hoverfly Migration: Incredible Journeys

The most remarkable migrants of all

It is the Autumn season birds are leaving our shores heading to their wintering grounds, a phenomenon known as migration. But did you know insects including some species of hoverflies are known to migrate too.

We are probably all familiar with the migration of the Monarch butterfly Danaus plexippus in the Americas and even closer to home in Europe the Painted Lady Vanessa cardui. But a fly no bigger than a 5p migrating such mass distances you might be a bit skeptical of the suggestion.

Why are hoverflies found on Oil Rigs?    credit Google maps

Hoverfly Sightings W/C 18th October 2025

Fungi forays & birds: A week with naturalists

Please note that the birds part of this blog was so large it warranted its own post Click here

18^th Oct British Naturalist Association: Fun with Fungi, Wortley Hall S.Yorkshire.

It has been a wonderful week for fungi so far. On a visit to Wortley Hall with the British Naturalist Association (B.N.A) we found 43 species just in the grounds. We were finding fungi at the rate of 1 every 4 minutes, identifying them before moving onto the next. The site has unimproved grassland and woodland with some veteran & ancient trees as well as standing deadwood and a few exotics. Leader R.Stewart.