Opomyzidae - a family tick

I know what you're thinking, no posts for weeks on end and then two on the same day! What can I say - maybe I should take a day off more often. Please do feel free to petition my boss demanding that henceforth I only work a two day week. Obviously without any drop in pay.

So, alongside yesterday's pipunculid lifer, I spotted an intriguing-looking fly sat on a bracken frond. I watched it from afar (ie from about a metre away, wondering if it would vanish before I unlimbered my net and handle from my rucksack and quickly assembled them) before remembering I had a camera in my pocket. This was the single shot I took before swiping the hastily assembled net into action and securing my quarry in a small glass tube.

The epitome of a 'record shot'

I then stood still and took a thorough visual scan across the surrounding bracken fronds. It was soon obvious to me that, at any given moment, I could see at least two or three of these mystery flies wherever I looked. I potted up a second individual, this also from a bracken frond, before heading off in search of warm sunlit spots. 

My initial thought was that these were maybe sciomyzids; they had that sort of flat, broad-winged, short-legged look to them. Back indoors I ran them through Oosterbroek and was delighted (yes delighted!) to key them through to Opomyzidae, a whole new dipteran family for me! Even better, there aren't very many of them on the British list and I just happened to have a chart of wing patterns and a key to species already saved on my desktop - sweet!

The wing pattern, combined with tergite colour, is enough to clinch the species

Basal scutellar bristles much the same length as the apical scutellar bristles

No vibrissae, a single recurved F-bristle, scattered setulae between the eyes...

This is Opomyza germinationis, which is apparently one of the commonest flies in Britain. Opomyza petrei is the main confusion species, but there are differences in tergite colouring and patterning and the ovipositor differs between species (both of my examples were female). NBN shows a whole barrage of Philip Entwhistle records from the far south-east of Skye and I fully expect it to occur in almost any patch of woodland edge throughout the island. 

Opomyzidae is my 48th dipteran family of the year, 36 of which have seen me identify at least one specimen to species level. The remaining dozen are either exceedingly difficult/obscure or I lack the required keys/magnification/skill level. All told, I have now seen and recognised members from 53 British dipteran families, which equates to 49.5% of the 107 families that occur here. One more and I'm halfway there!