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I've never seen one of these very colourful flies before so I asked around and a friend seemed pretty sure that it is a male phasia-hemiptera usually seen in the southern part of the country during the summer months. I saw this beaut about a week ago at Tring Nature Reserve (College Lake) Have a great day HFDF!!
The European bee-eater (Merops apiaster) is a near passerine bird in the bee-eater family, Meropidae. It breeds in southern Europe and in parts of north Africa and western Asia. It is strongly migratory, wintering in tropical Africa. This species occurs as a spring overshoot north of its range, with occasional breeding in northwest Europe.
The genus name Merops is Ancient Greek for "bee-eater", and apiaster is Latin, also meaning "bee-eater", from apis, "bee".
These bee-eaters are gregarious—nesting colonially in sandy banks, preferably near river shores, usually at the beginning of May. They make a relatively long tunnel, in which they lay five to eight spherical white eggs around the beginning of June. Both male and female care for the eggs, which they brood for about three weeks. They also feed and roost communally.
During courtship, the male feeds large items to the female while eating the small ones himself.
Most males are monogamous, but occasional bigamy has been encountered.
Their typical call is a distinctive, mellow, liquid and burry prreee or prruup.
European Bee-eater adult spring_w_5304
I'm using my new EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens on my very old Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi. Despite the fact that the camera hasn't been used in eight years it seems to be working well with the new macro lens. This saves me the trouble of constantly switching lenses on my 7D.
The butterfly was visiting Mountain Mint in my garden.
After reading my own description about the differences between male and female tiger swallowtails, I decided that my less than scientific definition might leave people a bit confused. I was saying silly things like the females look as if someone took beautiful blue spray paint and lightly misted her lower wings.
Anyway, I decided a translator might be in order so people can see the differences. Today, that translator is Wikipedia.
Note: On the image of the black morph, you can see her tiger stripes if you look closely. I was unable to get a snap of her open wings, she stayed in the deep shadows with her back turned away from me most of the time she was here.. Also those pesky goldrims were hassling her for a date as she was trying to sip nectar, so she decided to leave this nectar club and find another.
From Wikipedia:
The male is yellow with four black "tiger stripes" on each forewing. Females may be either yellow or black, making them dimorphic. The yellow morph is similar to the male, but with a conspicuous band of blue spots along the hindwing, while the dark morph is almost completely black.
I disagree slightly with Wikipedia's description of the black morph, they have brilliant blue spray paint like the yellow morph does :)
Have a wonderful day and happy snapping.