Thanks for those additions to your repertoire Steven!

Jim Jobe

That seems to be most likely.

Thanks Tony.

Looks like a small male Scathophaga stercoraria (Common Yellow Dung Fly)

Hi Kate, that is Scenopinus fenestralis (House Windowfly, a female), from family Scenopinidae, one of the families included in the soldierflies and allies recording scheme. Its larvae are predators of other insects, usually inside houses - things like larvae of carpet beetles and other beetles. It isn't seen all that often, and I'd be grateful if you can add the record details to iRecord (or NatureSpot if you prefer) for the recording scheme. See map attached.

In fact it looks like this will be the first record for Leicestershire since 1995!

Thanks to Tony Irwin who commented via Facebook: "Certainly Forcipomyia, and looks likely to be bipunctata, though that usually has paler wing bases."

Do have another look at the hind tibia - your picture appears to show a posterodorsal, in which case Phaonia may provide a better route to identification.

Many thanks Martin. Tha map is interesting, and I'm wondering whether the eastern bias is purely down to recorder effort, or whether other factors may be involved.

I'm planning to add all my records to iRecord, but there are many thousands - not just Diptera - and it's a daunting task, so I may give priority to the more significant and unusual specimens .

Thanks again.

I don't know how your records are currently stored, but if they are in spreadsheets it is possible to upload them in bulk to iRecord (as long as they haven't been sent to the recording schemes via other routes previously). Happy to pass on more details if this is of interest.

My records are stored as worksheets (one sheet per Order), in a rather large spreadsheet, but I’m in the process of reviewing everything at the moment. I'm trying to tidy everything up and re-examine older records to see if I still trust them.

The ability to do a bulk upload would be make life so much easier, thank you.

Do you mind if I e-mail you directly with more details re. the above?

Or austriaca - there is a discussion https://www.diptera.info/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=5&thread_id=53106 which may help to separate these two.

Thanks Tony, I am familiar with the diptera.info discussion and others and you're probably right about it being austriaca however I cling hopefully to the pair of orbital bristles.  I have emailed John and Barbara Ismay so I hope they will be able to shed some light...

I think this is Clinocera stagnalis (an empid)

Thank you Tony

Yes.

Looks OK.

Thanks Laurence.