St Mark’s Fly and A Beetle

Spring seemed finally to arrive on Saturday, with the sun out it felt warm.  With it the insects were starting to fly about, so I took a trip to Blashford Lakes to see what was around.

The insect of the day was the St Mark’s Fly – Bibio marci aka Hawthorn Fly. It is known commonly as the St Mark’s Fly as they usually emerge around St Mark’s Day, 25 April.  These were therefore early – though I have seen them in previous years as early as March.

Of these flies I took two of them, the first crawling across a leaf.

Then this one covered in pollen,  the first is a single shot a slightly lower magnification on the Canon MPE-65mm macro lens.  Cropped in post production.

Whereas this one is a stacked image of two shots.  The stack creating a similar depth of field to the lower magnification single shot.

And finally a beetle that was sitting nicely on a nettle.

All images taken on a Canon 5D MkIV, with flash light from Canon MT-24ex Twin Flash.