Causing grief to the bleeding eyes

After my previous frustrating attempt to key a couple of flies, I decided to take the tried and tested route of tackling some of the easy ones first.

Out in the garden net in hand I've been honing my catching technique. I'm still pretty pants at it if I'm honest. But I have managed to catch a few flies and more importantly even managed to identify them too. Well some of them 😆

First up was this one. I knew it was a hoverfly, so that was a good start. Using the great guide by Ball and Morris I got this to the genus Eupeodes.