Yet another thing to worry about

It is a hard life being a solitary bee or wasp.  This season is turning out to be particularly difficult with poor weather and high levels of parasitisation.  The red mason bees have had an especially bad time this year (more on that to follow).

While I was watching the bee house the other day I spotted this shifty-looking fly, loitering with intent.  It wasn't one I recognised so I took its photo, planning to report it to the authorities.  It turns out to be Eustalomiya festiva, aka as the Sub-plumose Log Fly, an ID subsequently confirmed on the UK Diptera Facebook page.

On Steven Falk's Flickr site he says " E. festiva is fairly frequent throughout the southern half of Britain, becoming scarcer in northern England and Scotland.  It is typically found around dead and fallen tree trunks and log piles [of which I have plenty] in sunny sheltered locations in and around woodland.".  He goes on to say "The larvae are cleptoparasites of wood-nesting crabronid wasps such as Ectemnius and probably Pemphredon species", both of which are present in the garden.

I have reported it to iRecord and it is the first record for the north-east of England.  I doubt if it is rare here but there may not be so many dipterists in these parts.  Flies look really difficult and complicated so I am not tempted to become one.