Paul's Back Garden Safari

Eudasyphora cyanella The weather this week has been sunny, warm and very Spring like. It’s a shame that I've had to work throughout the week, whistfully looking out of the office window at the garden. Though I have allowed myself to have my coffee and lunch in sunshine. As it happens I’m not the only one taking advantage of the warm rays of sunshine. Sitting on the hedge basking in the sunshine are about 20 to 30 small greenish flies. Eudasyphora cyanella is certainly making the most of the warmth. It looks superficially very much like the green bottle flies that we are all so familiar with, the Lucillia, however they belong to a different family called Muscidae. The adults which are flying now are among the earliest of the flies that emerge after overwintering as adults. As the flight ages during spring its colour gradually changes from green to a bronze colour. The female lays her eggs in cow dung before midday in the warm sunny weather. Cow dung is very much the preferred...