Fly Watching

Fly watching never caught on in Minnesota. There's no Hover Fly Society, no Syrphidae database, no distribution atlas. In the U.K., all these exist (see for instance Britain's Hoverflies: A Field Guide by Stuart Ball and Roger Morris).

In 1939, Horace S. Telford (1909 - 2004) published The Syrphidae of Minnesota. At the time he was a Ph. D. student at the University of Minnesota, in 1939. Recently, I was lucky enough to obtain a copy of this publication and it arrived in today's mail. According to the introduction, several thousand syrphid flies collected in Minnesota formed the basis of Telford's study. He provides county data and dates for 135 species from 52 genera.

What better way to honor the work of Horace S. Telford than to go fly watching. Meadow Sedgesitters were abundant at Hauberg Woods and at St Olaf Natural Lands. This species was known from 18 counties at the time of Telford's study with a flight period from May 20 to September 13. Three, possibly four, additional syrphid species were observed at St Olaf Natural Lands. These were the Margined Calligrapher (not included in Telford), the Narrow-headed Sun Fly (known from 12 counties with a flight period of May 14 - September 14), a Swamp Fly (Lejops sp.), and a different species of Sedgesitter (Platycheirus sp.).

Posted on May 7, 2017 04:05 AM by scottking