Threipmuir trio

[Sandy]

Hi hoverfly experts
On a recent visit to Threipmuir reservoir near Edinburgh I photographed three hoverflies which I may or may not have correctly identified.
I suspect these are:

Eriozona erratica (Megasyrphus annulipes)

Chrysotoxum arcuatum

Platycheirus granditarsus (Pyrophaena granditarsa)

If it's possible from these photos could anyone please confirm or correct these ids.

Thanks in advance,
Sandy

[Ian Andrews]

Sandy

Nice photos...you are finding a lot of good hoverflies!

Your Eriozona is, I believe, Sericomyia silentis, with wedge-shaped yellow bars, rather than bands, on the tergites.

Ian

[Sandy]

[Roger K.A. Morris]

Hello Sandy

Ian is correct in S. silentis. Your other two ID are correct.

It would be great to have the data.

Just as a general point, Stuart and I are hoping to produce an updated atlas in time for the 6th International Symposium on Syrphidae which will be held in Glasgow in 2011. We also hope that sufficient copies will be produced to to provide copies to recent contributors who have made a significant contribution to the dataset. We think this is likely to be people who have contributed 150 or more records. At the rate you are going it looks like you could be eligable - we would be delighted if you were. So, if you would be willing to think about keeping records of what you see, then you are likely to make quite an important contruibution. Your area is not terribly well recorded and even records of the commoner and more easily identifiable species would make a big difference. I think you are showing excellent caution in your ID - so we would be happy to accept records of easily ID species without corroborating specimens/photos.

Kindest regards

Roger

P/S, the same holds for Ian

[Sandy]

Thanks for the vote of confidence.
At the moment I just have lots of photographs with details of places and dates but I plan to try and organise the records using excel.
Here's the details of the above species:

RECORDS

Name of the species: Sericomyia silentis

Date of the observation: 05/08/2009

Grid reference: NT161637

Location name: Red Moss SWT Reserve, Balerno

Vice-county: Midlothian

Recorder's name: S. Rae

Determiner's name: Ian Andrews

Other information: Single Sericomyia on a umbellifer head(species?) for around 30 seconds. Apparently warming up rather than feeding. Habitat small trees surrounded by peat bog.

__________________________________

Name of the species: Chrysotoxum arcuatum

Date of the observation: 05/08/2009

Grid reference: NT164637

Location name: Red Moss SWT Reserve, Balerno

Vice-county: Midlothian

Recorder's name: S. Rae

Determiner's name: Roger K. A. Morris

Other information: Individual on a grass stem in a marshy ditch seen from the nature reserve's boardwalk.

________________________________________________


Name of the species: Platycheirus granditarsus

Date of the observation: 05/08/2009

Grid reference: NT164637

Location name: Red Moss SWT Reserve, Balerno

Vice-county: Midlothian

Recorder's name: S. Rae

Determiner's name: Roger K. A. Morris

Other information: Individual on a grass stem in a marshy ditch, around a foot away from the above Chrysotoxum.

Thanks,
Sandy