As I wrote in my blog last Sunday about the life-saving benefits to wildlife of Drought-tolerant Common fleabane, the sheer number of insects I’ve seen feeding on fleabane gives me hope for their survival of this summer’s heat and drought. And, fortunately, many locations in the UK have had some rain this week, easing the situation a little for both wildlife and humans. This final blog includes some of the bees and flies I’ve seen on Common fleabane. However, as I’m not very skilled at identifying either of these families, I’ve excluded several I wasn’t able to name. Bees first.

A worker Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), out foraging for pollen to take home to its family, all the offspring of a single queen who mated at the end of last summer, hibernated through the winter and began a new family in the spring. That life cycle will soon begin again.

A Common carder bumblebee (Bombus pascuorum), hard at work just like its Buff-tailed cousin.

A Honey bee (Apis mellifera) – I think we all know about Honey bees, their hives, their delicious product.

And now the flies I’ve been able to identify. Firstly, the very distinctive Red-sided parasite fly (Eriothrix rufomaculata). I spotted a few of these, which appeared to be feeding on the flowers but may also have been looking for moth larvae to parasitise.

This splendid metallic green fly is Lucilia sericata. Although there are several similar green flies, by zooming in on my image I was able to confirm that this one has ‘one anterior-dorsal bristle on the mid-tibia’, which is one of the main identification features for this species.