I was bending down to return my camera to my backpack as I was leaving Aberbargoed Grasslands NNR last week when I noticed something small and fuzzy flying over the earth below. Not a bee, not a hoverfly, too small for the one bee-fly (Dark-bordered) I recognise but its actions were typical of that bee-fly – hovering very low to the ground, taking particular interest in a small hole in the dirt and, as I continued to watch, seeming to flick its rear end towards that hole, the usual action of a bee-fly flicking its eggs into the hole of an unfortunate mining bee. Once home, I checked online and found an excellent resource from the Soldierflies and Allies Recording Scheme (‘Identifying bee-flies in genus Bombylius‘, compiled by Martin C. Harvey, version 3, May 2019), which pointed me towards Western bee-fly (Bombylius canescens). My identification was later confirmed by a representative of the Scheme, and an entomologist pal, when I posted photos on Twitter. A first for me!