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ID help for maybe Palloptera & maybe hovefly

Hi, new to the dipterists forum, hope this post is allowed, and in the right spot.

Saw numbers of lovely Volucella bombylans in my (very wild) garden yesterday, but also photographed two very distinctive looking flies which I can't ID. I try to ID whatever I see and then add to irecord, so would really appreciate any help available.

Simplest description is via photos, attached. First is a wide bodied fly which I thought may be a hoverfly, but can't see wing patterns and haven't matched it in my field guide. Markings look quite distinctive, yellow triangles at endge of wide abdomen, but I know that can be misleading. Since I ID from photos, I'm doomed with anything which has to be taken apart to see how it works.

The second fly looks a lot like images I've seen of Palloptera scutella, especially around the head, but I'm in East Sussex, and only distribution map I've seen shows this species in North only, also wing markings not particularly consistent for this ID.

Garden is very wet, with plenty of rushes, also hogweed, water figwort, nettles, brambles, mint, thistles, docks, willowherbs, teazles, bracken, tutsan, elder, cherry, oak, ash, hazel, willow, bordering hedges, mature trees, assorted ponds, oh, and did I mention, nettles.

Any help much appreciated! Thanks!

 

Comments

The first fly is a stratiomyid - try Odontomyia ornata. You're very lucky to have a garden with flies like this in it. The second looks to me like a female of the common dung fly Scathophaga stercoraria. However, unlike you I don't do identification from photgraphs, so please don't take these suggestions as determinations.

Hi Howard,

Thank you so much, very restrained of you to be patient with someone who can't identify a fly with the word 'common' in its name.

Thank you also for your comment on the garden. It feels like a small but incredibly welcome vindication of 10 years of trying to negotiate a path between nettle monoculture and overmanagement, whilst also avoiding divorce, my husband would defintely rather have an acre of daisy-sprinkled lawn than a wet wilderness which occasionally stings or claws him (just the plants). When I look up your ID 'suggestions' I'll be particulalry interested in finding out about the relevant life-histories, I'm slowly building a picture of the pairings of certain insects with certain plants, and it's very rewarding to find what specific species I'm supporting by sparing or encouraging specific plants or habitats.

 

 

 

Found a great photo-based ID pdf on the soldierflies and allies recording scheme site, and of course, ID of ornate brigadier seems spot on, so I went ahead and submitted to irecord (with a note that I had had ID help on the forum). Also realised that it is quite an exciting fly to have found... so needed to share my excitement about today, when I was out photographing beside the same pond and so far as I can tell, I photographed a female of the same species, sitting on floating vegetation on the pond.

 

Thank you again so much for your help!