Martin Harvey's blog

Some really excellent photographic identification guides have been produced recently by our colleagues in the Netherlands.

It's not every day that snipe-flies (Rhagionidae) get featured in the press, but here is a nice article about the Golden-backed Snipe-fly (Rhagio thoracicus), an American species. (Thanks to Ruud van der Weele for passing on the link via Facebook.

Bee-flies are probably the most familiar of all the species covered by this recording scheme, and now is the time of year when many people notice the Dark-edged Bee-fly in their garden and wonder what it is.

Have just added a new page to the website describing the various routes for sending in records to the recording scheme. Please get in touch if you have any questions, and please do send in your records!

Matt Prince has just posted an observation on iSpot that looks very good for the Large Fleck-winged Snipefly, Rhagio notatus. This species is more frequent in the northern half of Britain, and although there is one record in each of West Cornwall and South Devon, this looks like being the first for South Somerset.

Saturday 18 January 2014 - Identifying and recording Soldierflies and their allies Workshop for the British Entomological and Natural History Society, held at the Natural History Museum, London This workshop will introduce the group and take you through the steps required to gain experience of identifying the species, based on the keys in "British Soldierflies and their allies"