A Gardeners Friend

The daytime temperatures for the first half of October were well above average and therefore there were still plenty of Hoverflies about. This picture was taken on the 14th at 14:48 on a pleasant sunny Saturday afternoon.

My identification skills for Hoverflies are still at the beginners level, but I'm pretty sure this species is a female Eupeodes corollae. The male has rather quadrate spots and the female more crescent shaped or lunulate spots.

This is one of the commonest hoverflies in open habitats and can be abundant in some years, particularly when numbers are boosted by a migration or mass emergence in midsummer. It can be found from March to November, peaking in July and August. Therefore there is still time to spot this endearing critter.

One interesting statistic that I have found for this species is that a single E. corollae larvae can devour more than 800 aphids - wow!