Hover-flying

After yesterday's celebrations, it was back to the grindstone, with most of the day spent surveying a quarry in Essex. However, I managed to grab a few moments of peace before I set off, which I spent watching hoverflies and bees feeding on our Verbascum in the soft early morning sunshine. It seems appropriate to post an image of an insect from the garden, as we've now just passed 800 species on our year long survey. I'm pretty definite we'll record 1000 long before the year ends. And for the record this is one of the commonest hoverflies in the UK, Episyrphus balteatus, also known as the Marmalade Hoverfly. It migrates from the continent and numbers are just beginning to build up now.