Obliging hoverfly

This hoverfly basked in the sun happily while I fiddled with my camera, unlike most of the other insects I came across today. I thought it was a bee at first, but was pleased I realised it was actually a hoverfly quite quickly. I'm fairly sure it is Eristalis pertinax, one of the earliest and commonest hoverflies to be seen in my area. The books say it is a poor bee mimic - well it almost took me in!

I'm particularly pleased with this shot as I like the way the wing veins are echoed by the veins on the leaf.

I'm a lot more careful photographing insects now, trying to capture the important identification features - like the wing venation and leg colours with this hoverfly. I'm fairly sure my 'identification' of the mining bee yesterday was not correct. It's too easy to rush to an ID on the basis of quite superficial photographic evidence. I need to go back and get better shots of the bee, if possible.