Old pirates, yes, they rob I

A family walk at the weekend in some quite nice meadows allowed me a bit of sweeping action. In fact, giving the kids the net and letting them have a go kept them quiet for a fair old while and they turned up several grasshoppers and bush crickets as well as a plethora of hemiptera.

But it was the robberflies that again caught my eye as they perched on stems of grass and made their sorties out for prey. First up was this large blue-black indivdual.