This is one of the UK’s largest flies: a great pied hoverfly, so named for its black and white colouring. Ian photographed it at the bottom of The Race, near the Wildlife Wheel, feeding on the flowers of cow parsley. It is also called the pellucid hoverfly because, in certain lights, the pale patches on its sides are translucent: a see-through hoverfly!
These flies (Volucella pellucens) live in woodland edges and hedgerows, feeding on nectar and pollen from a wide variety of plants. They favour white flowers, in particular bramble blossom and white umbellifers like the hog weed and cow parsley growing in the reserve’s field boundaries.
This species is a predator of social wasps and bumblebees. The female searches for an underground nest, enters it apparently without being recognised as an enemy, and lays her eggs among the combs. When they first hatch, her larvae will feed on the wasps’ or bumblebees’ grubs; they then drop to the bottom of the nest and feed on its debris and detritus until the nest is abandoned in the autumn.
When fully developed the larvae leave the wasps’ nest and pupate in the ground nearby. They emerge the following year during May and June.
Header image by Ian Bushell
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 
Nice post 🎸🎸