I try to avoid getting close to horseflies as I react quite badly to their bites – in fact, I wear insect repellent for much of the summer to try to keep these little beasties away from me. But, when I got the close up views of A horsefly’s eyes that I blogged about on 14 June, I hadn’t realised the insects were out and about already and was repellent free, so I was doubly lucky – no bites and good photos.

I actually enjoyed another close encounter with a horsefly in late June and got the photo shown below. The eyes are very different, and I wonder now if this might have been a male, as it was happily perched on a leaf and didn’t approach me at all.