Yellow-banded Beegrabber

My report was submitted by mid-morning, giving me time to go and pick Ben up from work, after having bought food for a family meal in the evening. He and Sarah are having their kitchen floor screeded, so arranged to come to us for dinner a while ago. Chris and Lizzy arrived back from Spain in the small hours of the morning, and have decided to join us too.

It was lovely to be able to spend time preparing food for the evening meal, including a delicious pea and mint soup, and the first apple sauce of the year made from garden windfalls. I interspersed cooking with trips to the garden, where despite overcast conditions and a fresh northerly breeze, the goldenrod was attracting plenty of insects. Most were honey bees of green-bottle flies, but I also spotted a Holly Blue and this Yellow-banded Beegrabber Conops flavipes, a wasp-mimicking fly whose larvae are internal parasites of Red-tailed Bumblebees  and Osmia mason bees (which we have an abundance of). A new species for the garden!