Let’s Have Some Marmalade!

By pure coincidence as I was photographing the garden pond for the previous blog to my joy I had this delightful little visitor alight on the Yellow Flag Iris.

It is called the Marmalade Hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus, and I had to do quite the balancing act, getting my socks wet more than once, to get these photos as it had landed on the Iris which is growing in the pond.

At first it appeared to be feeding or drinking water droplets from the flower, but it was also giving its back legs a good washing.

Whatever it was doing it certainly brightened up this rainy, grey leaden day for me 🙂

Click once to expand view, click again to get that little bit closer

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May 2018, garden pond, rear garden, Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman Sigma 18-300mm with AML72-01 achromatic macro lens and Sigma 105mm macro lens. Yep, it even gave me time to change lenses between shots.