[Roger Morris]

Yes you are so right Jason - just the right approach. All records are useful. It does strike me that there may be a benefit from developing a theme on this issue - would you be prepared to start one - I am a bit of a luddite and as yet don't know how!

By the way, I've just spent two days going through all of the photos on Wild About Britain and have extracted usable data from 143 entries that we had not found elsewhere. Nothing terribly impressive but all useful. This sort of return for effort is fairly good bearing in mind the time of year - I would not be out recording! However, there were many more (probably the same again) with no data. Just by way of information here is the breakdown of records.

40 species were recorded. For most there were just single or a couple of records. The breakdown is at the end of this message. One of the most noticeable points I think is that most contributors are from southern England or the Midlands. Very few from Scotland or northern England. This seems to miror data coming in from other sources but I'm at a loss to know why - surely there are lots of field naturalists in Scotland?





Anasimyia contracta, 2; Baccha elongata, 1; Chrysotoxum bicinctum, 1; Chrysotoxum cautum, 1; Chrysotoxum elegans, 1; Chrysotoxum festivum, 2; Dasysyrphus tricinctus, 1; Dasysyrphus venustus, 2; Epistrophe grossulariae, 1; Episyrphus balteatus, 15; Eristalinus sepulchralis, 1; Eristalis arbustorum, 3; Eristalis interruptus, 2; Eristalis intricarius, 2; Eristalis pertinax, 9; Eristalis tenax, 9; Eupeodes corollae, 2; Helophilus pendulus, 18; Helophilus trivittatus, 2; Leucozona lucorum, 2; Melanostoma scalare, 3; Meliscaeva cinctella, 2; Merodon equestris, 3; Myathropa florea, 4; Platycheirus albimanus, 1; Rhingia campestris, 8; Rnhingia rostrata, 1; Scaeva pyrastri, 1; Scaeva selenitica, 1; Sericomyia silentis, 4; Sphaerophoria scripta, 2; Syritta pipiens, 1; Syrphus ribesii, 3; Tripidia scita, 1; Volucella bombylans, 8; Volucella inanis, 2; Volucella pellucens, 6; Volucella zonaria, 7; Xanthogramma pedissequum, 4; Xylota segnis, 4.