Cuckoo Bee

I was hoping for a St Mark's Fly as it is St Mark's Day. I captured one of these black flies with their dangly legs on Monday at Panshanger Park. I was hoping to hear the cuckoo too, but have had to make do with a cuckoo bee. 

I have a bank with a hedge on it that faces west and it's popular with mining bees. Consequently it's also popular with nomad bees that lay their eggs in the mining bees' nests. When the larvae hatch they kill the egg or larvae of the host bee and eat the pollen stocks. Plenty of bee flies about too, they flick their eggs into the mining bees' nests and when their larvae hatch they eat the bees' larvae.

There are about thirty species of Nomada bee in the UK. I'm afraid I have no idea which one is in my pic. Some are fairly big and this one is tiny. They look very wasp-like and I love their mottled eyes. They rest at night by clinging onto foliage with their mandibles.