Do we think over the coming years with the implementation of
Artificial Intelligence (A.I) for natural history, will we lose books dedicated
to identification?
Sometimes when you go for a nature walk you go with a specific subject matter in mind such as listening to birds in spring, to catch insects on a warm summer day, particularly hoverflies; or as autumn draws-in search for galls and leaf miners, before the trees shed their leaves and the first frosts appear. During such a ramble I always keep an eye out for anything unusual, a natural history curiosity, something either observed behaviourally, or on this occasion a new species to add to my records.
As the nights draw in and the days get colder, windier and wetter the chances to see hoverflies decrease. However, on those warmer days, with a little searching for that hoverfly hotspot, they can be found.
One of the species still around in numbers is the Common Banded hoverfly (Syrphus ribesii). They are one of those species where the common in the name does actually mean its common unlike Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago or Common Crane Grus grus. Other names for it are the Common Flower fly, as they are often referred to as flowerflies not hoverflies in the Americas. It is also known as the Humming Banded fly, a naming more related to its behaviour, and one I prefer, if it should become less common.
Peter
Creed.
NatureBureau (pbk) published 2014.
73 pages, 140 colour photos.
ISBN
978-1-874357-60-5
If you are new to hoverflies or stumbled onto this website
without a clue what a hoverfly is but interested enough to find out more, then
this might be the book to start with.
Common Banded (Syrphus ribesii) 3♀, Tapered Dronefly (Eristalis pertinax) 1♂, Common Dronefly (Eristalis tenax) 1♀, Marmalade (Episyrphus balteatus), Lunuled Aphideater (Eupeodes luniger) 1♀
Acrostic hoverfly genera Each slide explores a different genus: The genus name is split such that each letter forms a sentence, highlighting...
