Volucella zonaria in South Wales

Willrow · Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 4

I was very pleased to record Volucella zonaria from the Newport Wetlands Reserve in Gwent (Monmouthshire) last Friday, it is I believe only the second Vice County 35 record, incidentally the other one was also from the same area.

It's rather nice to see this wonderfully impressive hoverfly being recorded from South Wales, in 2006 I also recorded Glamorgan's 6th record from Southerndown on the coast.

Roger K.A. Morris · Joined: 06 Nov 2005 Posts: 1643

Quite correct

Regards

Roger

David Leverton · Joined: 27 Aug 2008 Posts: 5 Location: Vale of Glamorgan

Uncanny timing - I was stunned to see one twelve days ago in the garden near Cardiff, feeding on a buddleia, and grabbed my camera quickly having never come across anything like it before. Luckily there was a magazine pullout in the house about the Volucella species - from British Wildlife, April 2006 - so was able to identify it (her) pretty positively. (Thanks to the authors Stuart Ball and Roger Morris, from this site!)

Have been meaning to find this website ever since then - and then today I saw another zonaria (or the same one, maybe??) on the same bush so took some more photos, and have just joined up and uploaded a few to the photo gallery on this site. This individual stayed on the buddleia for approximately two hours, which amazed me - is this unusual? - and I spotted it again around two hours afterwards.

Here they are, as posted in the photo galleries:
15/8/08 - http://www.hoverfly.org.uk/album_page.php?pic_id=367
27/8/08 - http://www.hoverfly.org.uk/album_page.php?pic_id=368

Also, I was briefly confused this afternoon when at one stage it seemed to look different, then realised that it had actually been joined by what appeared to be a V. pellucens! This flew off after only a few moments, but I was able to get a clear silhouette of its wing plus, just about, a quick snapshot of the two species together, as attached.

Habitat-wise, the house is on the edge of town, about two miles inland, with fields and a small oak woodland beginning around 50m away behind the garden.

Roger K.A. Morris · Joined: 06 Nov 2005 Posts: 1643

Hello David

Grid refs for the site - basic data would be helpful:

Date, Grid Ref, Site Name, Recorder, Species

Always helpful for the database

Regards

Roger - can be sent as private message if needed

David Leverton · Joined: 27 Aug 2008 Posts: 5 Location: Vale of Glamorgan

Thanks for the response Roger - I'd actually included a lot of that in this post originally, then had a look in the data submission threads to see how to do it officially and realised it would be best to remove the relevant bits from here and do a proper submission over there, leaving this a general information post... Just didn't get a chance to do the proper record yesterday!