Mimic

After a quick coffee in town with the girls it was home to get a blip in the sunny garden. Although not masses of insects around which I thought strange, I did notice in one corner, masses of miner bees flying round just above the level of the grass.

Kneeling tentatively, some would say very gingerly down on the grass as each square foot was a seething mass of bees, I suddenly saw this little fellow.

Bombylius major or bee fly; easily mistaken for a bee till you look at the long proboscis
along with the dark brown wing edges. It had obviously come out of one of the mining bee nests where the larvae live as parasitoids and was enjoying briefly the sun on it's back.

Back to the paperwork now!