I was struggling with a hoverfly ID, because the individual I was looking at was very different to the only species I thought it must be. I know, of course, that just like us, individuals are not identical. Then, trawling the net, I found out why the two were so similar but so different… they are male and female. I’ve posted pictures of males before (below) but not females so here one can see the difference (three different females further below).
The Long Hoverfly Sphaerophoria scripta
Meanwhile, here is a garden feature that seems to attract no insects at all… shame as its about the most successful hanging basket I’ve made up.
