Hover confusion (again)

[Dillybythesea]

I tried to shoot every different hoverfly I could see on the ivy today, just to see what's still active into November, and, apart from E. tenax, E. pertinax and Episyrphus balteatus, which I could manage OK, I have ended up with lots of shots of what might be the same two or three individuals, or might all be different, and utterly . So any help would be gratefully received.
The first one is this, with a fringe around a bird's foot mark on the frons:

which might or might not be the same as this (2 angles of same individual):

and which again could be this - seen later - but v similar?

Then this, which is similar but definitely a different (tattier) individual, and with a solid block of dark on the frons:

And then this, which I think is Helophilus pendulus, and a very fresh one too?

I think I'd better do a separate posting for the smaller ones. This is probably confusing enough already. Thanks for any help!

[Geoff F]

I would say they are all Syrphus sp which can vary a little in brightness particularly late in the year.

One female, at least, appears to be S. vitripennis/ torvus.

The Helophilus looks most likely to be S. pendulus but the areas for 100% certainty aren't clear.

You are doing well to still be finding anything. Until a week ago, I was seeing the odd Eristalis and Episyrphus but nothing lately. And I am in the deep south.

[Dillybythesea]

Thanks Geoff. How very unreasonable of them, not only to be very similar, but to vary in brightness late in the year!

And yes I was afraid S. vitripennis/ torvus was involved in a couple - always SO unsatisfactory!

I'm finding it hard to discover which bits matter for a definite H. pendulus, but if I find out, and have other shots, perhaps I'll post them tomorrow.

Certainly I'm glad to have lots of ivy trees around here - they keep flowering longer than anything and on warm days insects seem to appear on them from nowhere.

But probably you in the deep south start much earlier in the year, and it'd be greedy to have it at both ends wouldn't it.

[Geoff F]

For Helophilus species (rather basically) a strong black face stripe plus the hind tibia less than half black (usually just one third) means H. pendulus.

No face stripe (although sometimes a faint rub) and hind tibia half or slightly more black means H. trivittatus.

Which just leaves the rare species like H. hybridus and H. groenlandicus which are similar to H. trivittatus but have an all black hind femur.

[Dillybythesea]

Thanks Geoff. I'm sorry it took awhile responding to your kind and helpful posting (suffered a revolt in the PC department, but have conquered!). It is SO useful to get tips like yours - and made it fun to go through the recycle bin looking for decent face shots, or hind tibia shots. Eventually I came across this, and so, thanks entirely to you, feel able to conclude H. pendulus!

[JRsbugs]

Helophilus pendulus has at least half of the hind tibia yellow, it's H. hybridus which has about 1/4 or less.

This is a female H. pendulus.