May has promptly brought the Maybug, the fearsome but placid Cockchafer which Nicholas Tesla famously tried to use to power his model aeroplanes when he was a boy. He never solved the problem of how to get more than one to fly in the same direction. I find it hard enough just to wake them up.
The new month has also brought a return to colder nights and a slowing-down in the number of visiting moths. But there have still been good things. Just below, for example, is a dainty Red Twin-spot Carpet pretending to be a butterfly and possibly setting a trend. The male Pale Tussock and Brimstone moth below it have adopted the same vertical folded-wing resting position instead of the more usual flat across the back.
Lastly, here are a couple of flies which I can bring you only thanks to my iPhone Bug ID icon which dealt with them promptly: a St Mark's Fly above, appearing promptly on or close to the saint's day on 25 April, and a sp[ecies of Dance Fly, Empis tessellata, which has already been confirmed by one of the kindly experts on iRecord.
Our main concern about flies round here is when the Blandford Fly will appear - a nasty biter which requires the Savlon to be permanently handy, it has spread from Dorset as an unwelcome by-product of otherwise excellent improvements in river water.
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