Rare hoverfly

My first trip to Mullaghagary wood for quite some time produced one of the more exciting of my hoverfly finds. The beautiful specimen below is Eriozona syrphoides (thanks to Malcolm Smart for the id). At first I thought it was a bumblebee in flight, but something said I should look closer. It landed at the bottom of a ditch - presumably to take on water in the hot weather - and I rattled off perhaps 20 shots at arms length.



This european species was first recorded in England in 1967, and was added to the Irish list in 1998, so it's clearly moving north and west. That's the end of the good news. It is only ever found near Spruce plantations (and, indeed, this was found at the edge of Spruce), so my campaign to reduce the amount of Spruce planting just took a severe blow.