This was my first horsefly of the year, never a welcome sight as I react quite badly to their bites.

She had just settled on my forearm (they have such a light touch that you often don’t notice they’re there until it’s too late), and was focused on her next task of slicing open my skin so that she could feed on my blood. But, before I fell victim to her bloodsucking, I made a quick grab for her and, amazingly, managed to get hold of one wing. That allowed me to get some reasonable close-up photos of her vicious mouth parts and those incredible eyes!

The BBC Wildlife website reports that horseflies’ eyes ‘are packed with hundreds (or thousands) of individual light-sensitive columns known as ommatidia (only the near-circular lens facets on the outside are visible)’ and also that the ‘hues are created not by pigments but by the light-refracting qualities of neighbouring groups of facets, determined by the densities of the lens cuticles.’ These particularly stunning eyes may belong to a female Haematopota pluvialis (only the females bite) but I haven’t yet had that identity confirmed.