The fly that won’t fly
As often happens when I go out to photograph something specific I end up photographing something I didn’t know existed.
Having no natural history background and with so much natural history on my doorstep ‘something I didn’t know existed’ isn’t hard to find. Knowing that there are so many unknowns makes every outing an adventure.
What I am acutely aware of is that the vast majority of the things I don’t recognise are not rare, just new to me.
Making the ‘rare mistake’ is common when starting out looking at wildlife or simply when a strange bird or plant, etc. is spotted. First stop is often the British Book of XYZ. This has been known to result in the conclusion that it must be the rarest bird/plant/…. in the book.
As far as Assynt sightings are concerned then I’d suggest your first stop could be the Field Club’s website. It can’t possibly carry images of every species ever recorded in Assynt, but lots of the more common ones are in the galleries.
If that doesn’t work and if you have managed to get a reasonable photo of the thing send it to the Field Club. Generally someone can help with the identification. This help only applies to species you’ve seen in Assynt.
The fly that won’t fly story
After all of that preamble it’s back to the fly story.
This year, 2023 has suited one of our insectivorous plants Common Butterwort, Pinguicula vulgaris with large numbers evident at the moment. So, I decided on May 28th to go and photograph them on a local croft less than a 5-minute walk away.
While looking for some good specimens I noticed two or three smart looking black and white flies. They were wandering about on the upturned metal cover of a pickup truck that was being used to store creels.
I couldn’t recall having seen this species before so some photos were required to possibly get it identified. Flying insects 99.9% of the time fly away as soon as you point a camera at them. I didn’t hold out much hope of being successful.
Amazingly these flies seemed to prefer to walk away rather than fly. Of course, that meant they simply went to the other side of the metal!
Getting to the point!
Long story short. After quite a bit of toing and froing I eventually managed a few snaps and sent them to the fly guru at the Highland Biological Recording Group, Murdo Macdonald.
As suspected a specimen would be required to confirm any ID. One fly was duly sent to Murdo and he responded with “this is Tachydromia umbrarum and we only have 7 records in Highland, but none near you so you will soon have the farthest North dot by quite a way on the NBN [National Biological Network] Atlas.” He even supplied the attached map showing the locations of the other 7 records.
There wasn’t much more information about this species on the internet, but the following on www.naturespot.org.uk was a nice find.
“This is quite a well-marked fly with a wing pattern of dark brown and whitish bands. It is more likely to walk or run than it is to fly. There are other similar species and the specimen needs to be microscopically examined for a safe id.”
Indeed, it was the fly that won’t fly!
D.Haines