---

I found this fly in the front garden a few hours ago. The weather has been very changeable all day. The fly appeared to be drying out/resting/sunning itself.

Mid-April, 2012, Mid-Essex.

Thanks!

---

Yes, Tachinidae ... but I'm not sure which species :)

---

Thanks.
Is my photo not detailed enough?
I can't get any closer with my compact.
This one wouldn't let me take a side view...

---

Well, I can see a lot but it is very anonymous - the features that I can see are very common in a lot of species. Also, I can't see the apical scutellar bristles, which would be useful :)

---

It reminds me of Cyzenis albicans, but that shouldn't be taken as a definitive identification, of course.

---

It reminds me of Phryxe nemea, but without a certainty.

---

I think Erikas suggestion is more likely.

---

Yes, the only think that I could link it to would have been Phryxe ... but that didn't really feel confident enough for me. I wondered if it might be a little teneral perhaps and that could have lightened the colours a little ... anyway, it's not an easy one :)

---

Thank you all for looking at my fly and puzzling over it.
I'm not experienced enough to get the "right" shot, and just take the best I can in the circumstances. I have one more pic of this fly, but I don't think it really shows the bristles you're after, Chris (just guessing on this), but I'll post it anyway. It may help.

Life would be a tad boring if everything were easy, wouldn't it? ;)

---

Here's another shot of the fly, but I don't think it'll help much. Worth a try, though, especially as I was able to recognise it as a Tachinid...

---

I think that I can see raised, crossed apical scutellars ... so I suppose the best way to phrase it is that there's nothing to say that it *isn't* Phryxe nemea ... but that isn't saying without any doubt that it is ;)

---

Thanks Chris! There are really useful words in the English language, like "probably" or "possibly." I use them quite a lot...

I'm going to lighten the pic, should have thought of that before, to see if I can see what you can see... but...

Cheers!

---

Chris, I THINK I can see what you're getting at...
Here's a lighter version. I've only just learnt how to manipulate exposure and things... so I keep forgetting that I can. Mind you, I still need to know what other people need to be able to see in order to get it right!
:D

Drat, there's obviously more info in this version, it didn't upload. I'll crop again and try again...

---

Yes, I use "probably" and "possibly" a lot too and phrases like "it looks like" ... but I've found that many non-entomologists assume that they are as good as "it is" ;)

It's all down to how certain you have to be to accept it as fact and for recording schemes, like ours, we need close to specimen-level certainty (even with specimens some IDs are not really as certain as others), which a lot of photos just never quite reach ... but for the photographer often a fairly vague "might be" is enough to give it a label :)

BTW, if you look at the last photo and particularly at the tip of the thorax you should see 2 crossed bristles silhouetted against the grey of the abdomen. Those are the raised & crossed apical scutellars.

---

We have two crossed bristles! Yippeeeeeeeeeeee!

Our comments crossed in the uploading!

Agree with your comments. I've become awfully careful about IDs lately 'cos I don't like know-it-alls jumping on me from a great height... my dodgy adrenal gland can't cope!

Thanks for all your help. It's been great talking to you.
|t