The Hoverfly some may know it as the Flower Fly or the Syrphid Fly. No matter what you know this flies name as, it is a unique species.of the insect kingdom! Resembling the bee species only help this fly in my opinion. The Hoverfly is harmless and no doubt a benefit to our gardens!!
Now this vary small, yellow and black species of the Hoverfly is what I have captured with my camera and what I have watched do its thing for some time now. So this is the one which will be featured in this article.
Now for some time Guy and I had confused this Hoverfly with the sweat bee. Though I always wondered why this species never bothered us? Well, that is because this is not a sweat bee but rather a Hoverfly!!
There is around 6,000 species of the Hoverfly and 200 genera have been described *.
This species is vary quick!! Within my photographs , there are 3 different Hoverflies of the same species.
The first one I watched, was on a wild rose bush that has been attacked by aphids. One thing I noticed was there is yet to be any pollen on this rose bush. So what on earth was this little hoverfly doing?? From my observations I noticed it was feeding on the insects that have attacked our wild rose bush. I also noticed it looked as if it was drinking water from a water drop. I also took note of the Hoverfly tongue is unlike say the bumble bee tongue. The Hoverfly tongue is rather flat on the end, or I think so.
I personally love the eyes of insects! They do not see as we do, and some of my shots here or in my vast catalog of insect photographs show the many facet of the insects eyes.
This species of the Hoverfly was so fascinating to just watch!! I moved on from the wild rose bush to photograph our columbine flowers which are near some of our lupine flowers.
I had to make my way through some of our many lilac bushes, more like trees! Not to hurt the lupine flowers or the columbine flowers which are on the other side of our fence, and near one of our small ponds we provide for wildlife of all shapes and sizes here in the high desert of Oregon and inside the fence where we keep our dogs contained.
I then noticed several Hoverflies taking advantage of the pollen of the Lupine and Columbine flowers. This is where many of my photographs were shot at.
The Hoverflies do not share the same flower, but will fly off to another if a more hungry Hoverfly shows up! Well enough talk lets get on with the photographs shall we?
Wonderful shots! You did a great job of these macros!!
Thank you Smallfox Photography!! :0)