Tarnished

I've been photographing different specimens of Epistrophe eligans ever since they emerged last week, but until today none has made it into my journal. Today it rained until lunchtime, and even when that stopped it was blowing a gale and bitterly cold, so when I first ventured out with the camera I wasn't surprised that there was almost no insect activity in the garden. The situation improved a little by mid-afternoon, and some other inverts came cautiously out of their shelters, but for quite a while this hoverfly was the only subject I could find, so it seems only fair that I should post him.

Epistrophe eligans is quite hard to capture well because of its gleaming gold thorax, which gives back dazzling reflections in strong light, but today there was almost no light - hence the ISO of 5,000 - and the thoracic plate of this male is also stained across about half its surface, further reducing its reflectivity. (You still get a bonus portrait of the photographer though.) The yellow abdominal markings are very variable in this species, and can be completely absent, but the scutellum is always yellow, and taken together with the gold thorax this is diagnostic.

My second photo tonight (and probably my favourite of the day) is a female Grey-patched Mining Bee, and is the companion to this image. As you can see, she's much more robust than the male, which is generally the case with mining bees.