I have one of you to thank for the inspiration for this post; through his comments on my recent post about Wild garlic, Philip Strange (who, if you don’t already know and follow him, produces a really interesting science and nature blog) reminded me to look for the hoverfly associated with that plant. And so I did. And here it is.

For those of you who don’t live in Britain, we are currently experiencing a week of high (for us) temperatures (this is probably our summer, and normal conditions will resume shortly), so, yesterday, a walk through a shady woodland seemed like a good plan. When I arrived at Cwm George, in the nearby town of Dinas Powys, I was delighted to find it was peak garlic time and, when I stood watching those patches of flowering Wild garlic on which sunshine streamed through the tree canopy, I was even more delighted to spot several small grey-patterned hoverflies, both perched on and hovering around the plants.

These are Portevinia maculata hoverflies, and they have a very strong association with Wild garlic (aka Ramsons), as their larvae mine the bulbs and stem bases of those plants. My guide book says that ‘Where Ramsons is abundant, this hoverfly is usually also abundant’ but Philip and I might both dispute that statement. In my local park, where I took the photos for my recent blog and where Wild garlic is prolific, I’ve never seen this hoverfly. So, I was really pleased to find it in good numbers at Cwm George.