Snipe Fly

A female snipe fly, of species Rhagio scolopaceus (Diptera: Rhagionidae).

Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-05-20.

ImageMagick

Thomas Guest in a post at wordaligned.org:

ImageMagick masquerades as a shell tool but really it’s a powerful and fully featured programmer’s imaging tool — a bit like a command-line version of Gimp. Although well documented, my gut reaction is that it pushes the command-line interface too far.

Longhorn Moths

A small moth with ridiculously long antennae: Nemophora degeerella, the longhorn moth.  Only in the male are the antennae this long (4 to 6 times body length), in the female they are much shorter (only 1 times body length). 

This afternoon I came across several males in the bushes near the ice house.  Further along my walk I saw some females, but I didn't get any photos of them.

Photos taken in Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-05-20.

Scorpion Fly

A male scorpion fly, Panorpa sp. (order Mecoptera).  The females do not have the large red 'sting', just have a red pointed tip at the end of their abdomen (see here).  There are 3 UK species of Panorpa but these are difficult to distinguish without the aid of a microscope. 

In the past, I have found scorpion flies very difficult to photograph: they seem to like hiding in among twigs and leaves, and when you go anywhere near them with a camera they immediately fly off.  Today the weather was a bit cool and maybe that is why this fly was a bit slower than usual.

Photos taken in Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-05-17.

Update on Sat 2012-03-10 by Tristram Brelstaff

The structure of the 'sting' indicates that was Panorpa communis.  See this post by Tim Worfolk on how to distinguish the males of UK species of Panorpa.

Orange Fly

Photographed among the irises in the marsh on the northern edge of the large lake.  I'm not sure of the identification as there are quite a few families of dipteran flies that contain species that look rather similar to this.

I don't think it is a dung fly (family Scathophagidae), such as Scathophaga stercoraria, because it's thorax and legs are not covered with yellow or greenish-yellow hairs. 

I also don't think it is a member of family Heleomyzidae, such as Suillia variegata, because they have distinct black spines on the leading edges of their wings. 

It might be a member of family Sciomyzidae, such as Tetanocera elata.  The latter "frequents waterside vegetation where, like other members of the family, the larvae feed on small snails" (M. Chinery, Insects of Britain & North Europe, 3rd Edition, Collins, 1993, pages 203-204).  The above fly was in some irises at the edge of a lake, and I did notice several small snails on those irises.

Photo taken in Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-05-17.