Atop Harter Fell.
Hope you’re all having a Happy Sunday too 💚

Looks like it, Hannah - what an amazing gathering!

I might be wrong (experts ⁦Gail Ashton 💚🪲🌍⁩ ⁦Dominic Couzens⁩ what do you reckon?) but perhaps this is an Alder leaf beetle party? I mean, it’s certainly a beetle party. #Hatch

The new guide (in preparation) to #FliesofBritainandIreland is looking good

Genuinely excited for this publication. 🪰🦟😎

#Metamorphosis - How insects are changing our planet - IS OUT NOW

‘Before humans stamped their mark on this planet, insects had shaped it into the colourful & extraordinary world we all share today’

Be inspired by the insects & those that studied them

Natural History Museum RagsandRuby

Thank you so much Leif! The Wonderweeds looks awesome!
🌼💛🌳💚

Having some fun sorting out pix for the back cover illustration for our photographic guide to #FliesofBritainandIreland in prep for publication in Autumn 2025 Gail Ashton 💚🪲🌍 Rory Dimond 🌼🪰🌼🐝🌼🦟 Steven Falk Dr Erica McAlister BBO Wildlife Trust Dipterists Forum

Love this book so much.
#StubbsDrake
BENHS
#flies

Honey bee, bumblebee & wasp or hoverflies? Brilliant mimicry helps protect these 3 hoverflies from predators - left-right Eristalis tenax, Pocota personata & Chrysotoxum cautum #FliesofBritainandIreland Gail Ashton 💚🪲🌍 Rory Dimond 🌼🪰🌼🐝🌼🦟 BBO Wildlife Trust

All my images of living Empididae now on Flickr. Afraid it's only a tiny proportion of the 207 British species (and nearly all Empis species) but hoping 1 or 2 might make the new NatureBureau fly guide: flickr.com/photos/6307520…. Will try to get lots of new images this spring.

Pasque flowers taking a beating in the wind today in Hertfordshire.
#wildflowerhour

Gail Ashton 💚🪲🌍 NatureBureau Steven Falk Dr Erica McAlister Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust Dipterists Forum Its face reminded me of someone, then it hit me. Dori from the Hobbit films.
There's something very fantasy dwarfish about Myopa. Stocky, hirsute, spoiling for a jab at something, springing up from out the ground!

This Plain-winged Conopid’s (Myopa testacea) left wing didn’t inflate properly after eclosion. Unable to fly, it can only watch as bees zip busily around it. Swipe for a close up of its fabulous conopidy face.
#FliesOfBritainAndEurope
NatureBureau Rory Dimond 🌼🪰🌼🐝🌼🦟 Steven Falk

The cutest lil cuckoo bee in my garden yesterday.

Gooden’s Nomad Bee
(Nomada goodeniana)
Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust

Girls trip birding in Portugal ☀️🪶

C. 80 species so far including Spanish Imperial Eagle; displaying Montagus; Black-Bellied Sandgrouse; Bee-eaters; Hoopoes; Pallid swifts; Gull-billed Terns; Golden Eagles; Booted Eagles; a Lesser Kestrel colony; and a nice surprise Puffin✨

The hoverfly Melanostoma scalare adding a drop of gold to the shining yellow Lesser Celandines in the garden today. One of the UK's commonest hoverflies and often overlooked but exquisite up close. Lesser Celandines are a good flower to check for a variety of spring syrphids.

I've posted a first draft of a key to the British families of beetles here: sites.google.com/view/mikes-ins…

It's not just the Easter Bunny who hides eggs.The satellite fly Leucophora secretes hers inside mining bee nests, but doesn't want them to be found. Her kids hatch in a sweet shop of pollen stores gathered by the host bee and emerge as adults in spring #HappyEaster

Flickr-light, stopgap treatment for Anthomyiidae taking shape based on photos of living ones I have to hand flickr.com/photos/6307520…. Will try to photograph pinned ones next year. They can be some of the most abundant flies in early spring, and some are head-turners..

Immensely excited! When these names came onto my radar as a budding entomology nerd I never dreamed I'd write a book with them! Many will know Steven Falk as a powerhouse at making insect identification accessible, so it's amazing and very fitting to have him on board.