Dalgety Bay - Soldiering on

A weekend heavily dominated by a wonderful 3 hour session patrolling mayweed on the shore. Every slow trek along the stretch turned up something new, including two fantastic flies. The first, which I thought was a Gonia, I now realise isn't - it's Tachina fera. Since both are things I have really wanted to see for a long time I somehow transposed them. What a bizarre mistake to make. Ironically the less scarce Tachina is new for VC85 whereas the Gonia wouldn't have been.

Anyway ... the second , which is new for the county at least, and possibly new to Scotland, is the soldierfly Chorisops nagatomii. Both species of the genus are southerly in distribution but nagatomii is a late summer species and in all references consulted so far has no Scottish records. Once I establish the species ID is good I'll cross check to see if someone else has pipped me to the post. (An aside on this is that I didn't realise it was anything interesting until I got it under the microscope. No voucher, no record!)

yellow humeri and posterior calli are key to the, erm, key

And how about something truly beautiful? Coniophora puteana. Lovely.

869	Tipula fulvipennis	A cranefly
870	Hebeloma crustuliniforme	A fungus
871	Diarsia dahlii	Barred Chestnut
872	Chorisops nagatomii	A Soldier Fly
873	Sericomyia silentis	A hoverfly
874	Vanessa atalanta	Red admiral
875	Erisyphe cichoracearum	A fungus
876	Pipiza noctiluca	A hoverfly
877	Pteridium aquilinum	Bracken
878	Rhagoletis alternata	A tephritid fly
879	Coniophora puteana	A fungus
880	Eristalis arbustorum	A hoverfly
881	Kaestneria pullata	A Linyphiid spider
882	Dilophus femorata	A Bibionid fly
883	Tachina fera	A tachinid fly