Lletty Brongu Lanes

After three days rain and people mentioning that there are very few hovers about after the rain, I waited till the afternoon and better weather to take a walk. It was quite warm at 20c and very little wind but was overcast on times.  When not expecting much you always end up with a good day, I realized this when I got out of the car and the first hogweed plant has 7 species of hoverfly on it. In  a 1 mile round walk hoverflies were everywhere and in huge numbers. I recorded over a 1000 flies of 45 species on the Hogweed and supporting plants, which was a new daily record for me beating last years 43 at Blaencaerau around the same time of year. With so many hoverflies I didn't notice much else except for a couple of longhorn beetles Rutpela maculata and some tortrix moths in Pammene aurana.

 Chrysotoxum species - a large individual showing characteristics of both "cautum" and "elegans" [the 2 larger ones of the genus]. For cautum it shows on the antennae seg 1 is shorter than seg 2, but also shows seg 1 + seg 2 is longer than seg 3 which should not be in cautum but in elegans. Also the thoracic hairs are pale and not as long as the antennae are wide again favouring elegans. The second picture shows that the yellow on tergite 2 bends down and thickens to the lateral margin like on elegans, on cautum it should be straight to the margin. I kept the specimen and it keys out to elegans. I'll send the photos to Roger Morris of HRS to see if he can add anything on the ID. Otherwise we will have to wait until the end of the year when the specimens are assessed. I'll update with his thoughts when I get a reply.  update - From photos Roger Morris reckons it's Chrysotoxum cautum [worth a try though 👮]

 Chrysotoxum bicinctum

 Dasysyrphus albostriatus

 Epistrophe grossulariae

 Eupeodes latifasciatus - key'ed out

 Leucozona glaucia

 Myathropa florea

 Platycheirus granditarsus

 Scaeva pyrastri