Drone Fly

This is a common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax), and it's a European species, so I'm thinking it's been introduced over here, same as it's been introduced into North America.

Not that it's all that common to me, because I'd never seen one before. We noticed them last night when we went for our evening constitutional at the Belair Railway station. The bush was alive with these flies as well as honey bees and a couple of butterflies.

So we went back this morning just so I could get this Blip and Rower could also get his for the day. I saw some incredible action - there were fights between the drone flies and the honey bees - if they happened to land on the same flower together - it was serious aerial combat.

More awesome detail in LARGE