Early April 2016

The cool, showery weather has not been great for searching for flies. Yesterday, we had a meeting at the Wildlife Trust's Ring  Haw field station as a follow-up to Roger Morris and Stuart Ball's workshop on fly families, held in January at Cambourne. Seven of us attended plus Roger and Stuart. Although the weather was cool and breezy we did manage to do some field work. The plan was to practice some collecting techniques and then identify the finds down to family level or lower if possible. In all we found representatives of 22 families, with representatives of Nematocera, lower Brachycera, Acalypterates and Calypterates present. One special find was a hovering male Cheilosia nebulosa over the old railway track. This was almost the exact place that Graham Warnes found one a couple of years ago. The session went very well and I think everyone felt they had gained from the experience.