Mark McCaughrean1d ago

Still slowly crawling towards full-blown spring here – mostly cloudy & not that warm yet 🤷‍♂️

But still some things to see in the garden, starting with this pretty fly.

From the colouration, & arrangement of bristles on the thorax & around the eyes, my best guess is a female common European greenbottle (Lucilia sericata; 🇩🇪 Goldfliege / Grüne Goldfliege).

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Show threadMark McCaughrean1d ago

Harder to photo & ID is this much smaller metallic fly, perched on the edge of a tulip.

From the shape & sheen, it's likely in genus Psilopa (shore or brine flies in English; Uferfliege in 🇩🇪), & one plausible option for the species would be P. nitidula.

That said, we're quite some way from any sea or brine, so maybe it's something else entirely 😬

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Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖1d ago
@markmccaughrean Brine flies are common by ponds, but this looks more like a lance fly.
Show threadMark McCaughrean1d ago
@chemoelectric Could be – there's a wide spread of metallic colours in that family. iNaturalist was fairly sure it's Psilopa, & there are some of those that look a lot like this, but I agree, the lack of a nearby pond isn't helpful to that theory 🙂
Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖22h ago
@markmccaughrean Where I live, there is nowhere that a pond is not nearby. :)
Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖22h ago
@markmccaughrean I mean, it is mid-continent and there are herring gulls everywhere.
Show threadMark McCaughrean22h ago
@chemoelectric Ha – I’m still adjusting to living back in the middle of this continent after fifteen years just five km from the North Sea. And being halfway up a steep valley is equally weird …
Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖

@markmccaughrean Occasionally I have seen white pelicans, but the supposed place to see the largest concentrations of white pelicans is a lake to the north a bit.

I do not see many arthropods or molluscs compared to growing up in New Jersey, but it might be due partly to spraying in this more urban area.

12:30pmWeb
Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖7h ago
@markmccaughrean It could also simply be that I grew up in an infested house and yard, which I certainly did, and also I was young and explored and now am old.