The Blackbottle Fly

I was sharing my lunch break with Wee Hughie the decorator this afternoon. He was busily regaling me with tales of yesteryear, back when the world was a far better place, when a modestly large fly buzzed between us and began to slowly yet relentlessly batter itself against a window pane. I gave it a surreptitious glance - looked like a blowfly to me, which meant it would almost undoubtedly prove to be the ubiquitous Calliphora vomitoria (vicina is decidedly uncommon around here). Anyway, I figured it would be rude to interrupt Hughie mid-story and the fly would still be there in ten minutes time once he'd returned upstairs to finish painting the walls.

Sure enough, it was still there after Hughie left. I quickly shoved it into a pot, had a look and realised it wasn't Calliphora vomitoria after all - it was a rather ugly black blowfly. Hmmm. I left it in its pot until I finished work and then had a closer look at what it was that I'd caught.

With those widely separated eyes, I figured this fly was almost certainly a female. I still didn't know what it was, but it looked like a blowfly to me. I was a bit thrown by the neatly folded wings - surely blowflies sit with their wings halfway open? Only one thing for it, I had to key it through and see where it dropped me out.

That really is one seriously wide frons!

Using my brand new A Key to the Families of British Diptera that arrived this afternoon, I keyed this through to Rhinophoridae, the so-called Woodlouse Flies. There's an online copy of this book free to view/download here, but in my eyes you can't beat having a real book in front of you, especially seeing as I only paid about four quid for it. I'm pretty heavily into real books, I used to have a fridge magnet that read, "A room without books is like a body without a soul", even though I don't actually believe in souls, but you get my drift.

Rather awkwardly, this wasn't a Woodlouse Fly at all, though it was a close relative. I'm not sure where I went wrong in the family key, but I did.

It's not called The Blackbottle for nothing

Using another key, I ended up in the right place with Protophormia terraenovae, the Northern Blowfly, aka the Blackbottle.

I've recorded this fly from up here once before, a male in the sheep fields during July of last year. It should prove to be a common species here, so it's well worth my time getting to grips with the recognition features. The only other fly I found tonight was a small gnat on the ceiling of the laundry shed (I actually had washing to do tonight, as opposed to just lurking like a weirdo). 

Just look at those antennae! 

You can imagine my amazement when I popped this 3mm speck beneath the microscope and found myself looking at those incredible antennae. They are so disproportionately large it seems the fly can barely manage to raise its head! Using the wing venation, plus a few other features, I keyed this through to Chironimidae - a very large family (625 British species) of very small midges. It would almost certainly prove to be 'new' to Skye (and certainly to myself), but that's only because there are very few folks out there experienced/active enough to be out and about recording these things. 

Tonight I give you Frons Ferdinand, live in Strombo's living room!