UK Hoverflies (Syrphidae)'s Journal

Hi everyone,

Annotatathon

I want to start by thanking all those of you who were involved in the 'Annotatathon'. Over that weekend we added a splendid total of 33 044 annotations! I would be surprised if we didn't now have the best annotated national Syrphid fauna of any (large) country on the planet :-). Incidentally, if you want to contribute annotations abroad you can use much the same rules - in relation to sex annotation Syrphini in particular are safe, most of the new exceptions will still be in recognisable groups like Helophilina. Just beware that the Microdontinae are far more diverse abroad, and there are more exceptions to the eyes rule in the Merodontini (especially Eumerus) but you can still tell that the male eyes are converging rather than diverging as in females.

Anyway, this is what our efforts look like zoomed out to the whole duration of the project. (I haven't recorded this information regularly unfortunately, but you get the picture!)

I know some of you have continued to add annotations since the event, which is great - please do continue to use the links in the main post for that. (I need to work out a strategy for dealing with the slightly strange issue that arose with dislodging old observations with a high proportion of obscured locations to HRS. One way that you could help is by changing the geoprivacy on any of your old observations with obscured locations to pinned locations.)

Annotations

In the more regular way of looking at monthly annotations we have also done well. There were fewer than 400 new observations in November which makes things easier, but even so yes, that 'life stage' data point is at 100%!

Identification

There is plenty to be pleased about on the NeedsID front as well. The total size of the Needs ID pile is nearly back to where it was at the end of July. Only 6 genera have increased (and not by much), with 40 unchanged and 24 down. The biggest % fallers with >50 obs to start with were Sphaerophoria (-50%), Episyrphus (-29%), Eumerus (-17%), Dasysyrphus (-15%), Epistrophe (-8.4%) and Eupeodes (also -8.4%). It's particularly nice to see such a big % fall in Eupeodes, the neediest genus. Personally, I will finish my assault on Sphaerophoria soon and move on to Eristalis. Feel free to let us know what you're up to in the comments!

Don't feel like you have to be restricted to the really big genera though. HRS like it when unusual species records roll in! Why not have a pop at learning Sericomyia, Xylota, Chrysotoxum or Xanthogramma? A couple of words of advice:
1) See the resources page
2) Don't forget to check that the genus is correct before you ID the species!
3) Try not to be overconfident - it is better not to ID than to over-ID.
4) Having said that, don't be afraid of making a few mistakes, it's the best way to learn.
5) You can always tag one of the recent top identifiers into the observation to ask questions. This is especially useful if you think it's a rare species - you're probably wrong by definition so it's always best to check!
6) Don't feel pressure to do loads. Take the time you need to be confident.

Obscured Locations

I thought it would be interesting to see what is happening with obscured locations. Observations with geoprivacy set to 'obscured' cannot be used by UK recording schemes (but they are still sent to them, they just have to reject them because they cannot see a sufficiently accurate location, wasting time and energy). So NBN are encouraging people to use pinned locations instead (it is ultimately each user's choice though, how to manage their privacy). The graph below will not be particularly accurate, because it fails to reflect that some people changed their old observations when the project started, but before I gathered this data (that includes myself!). In other words, the numbers in the past would have been higher than this graph suggests. This seems encouraging, even if November's very low figure is probably an aberration due to the low overall numbers. Thanks everyone!

Further events

I'll have a think about what other events might be worth doing over the festive season! Ideas welcome.

Thanks again,

Happy Advent: "God bless us, every one!"

All data compiled on 30-Nov-2023

Hello all,

I had a conversation with Roger Morris on the Facebook group this week that gave me a few thoughts, and resulted in me finding some new ways of getting data which I thought you might be interested in. Here is a graph of the number of identifications added to UK Hoverflies weekly in 2022 and 2023. The green dot represents the last datapoint before we really kicked things off on this project.

It looks like identifications followed a very similar trajectory to the previous year until around the start of the project and then took off. That's really exciting to see. Another thing I find interesting is that the number of identifications is generally remarkably low in the winter, which kind of challenges my own perception that people on iNat generally do more observing in the summer and focus on identifying in the winter. It seems in fact that both rise and fall together. Perhaps we can use this winter differently, and use it as an opportunity to learn more about our favorite creatures, and practice identifying them.

Now, one thing Roger pointed out was that at some point early in the new year he and Stuart will download iRecord's dataset for 2023. I thought it would be good to see if we can get more of 2023's iNat data through to them in December so that it appears in that download. So may I suggest that up until Christmas, when you are identifying UK hoverflies, it would be a good idea to stick to 2023 records. (We can work on older records in the New Year). To that end, here is a slightly different take on the NeedsID pile with a focus on 2023.

Firstly let's put 2023 in the context of previous years:

As you can see, nearly 40% of the pile is from 2023. But this doesn't tell a complete story, because something quite remarkable has happened this year: after 3 years of relative stability, the total number of hoverfly observations this year has jumped by 50%!

Incredibly, we've done so well at identification that there are more RG observations this year, than total observations in any previous year! But still nearly 6000 from 2023 Need ID. Here's how they divide up in detail:

We don't need to break down the Bacchines, Melanostomines, or Microdontines because they are are almost entirely Platycheirus, Melanostoma and Microdon respectively. And I won't break down the small number of Pipizines either because there are so few. Here's the rest:

I'm not expecting us to get everything done by New Year, but let's see what we can do in these long cold evenings. It would be lovely to send through a good diversity of species to give HRS a rounded picture of iNat observations, so perhaps you might like to pick out some of the slightly smaller genera to learn and to identify, rather than having us all just hammering away at Syrphus and Eupeodes! There are also those observations stuck at higher levels if you don't want to be the person making things research grade :)

Please don't forget to try to add annotations before IDs, so that HRS get all of that data :) I usually do all the annotations for a page, and then go back through the same page and do what IDs I can.

Here are some URLs:
2023 UK Hoverflies Needing ID
2023 UK Hoverflies stuck at levels above genus
2023 UK Hoverflies Needing ID and without sex annotation excluding difficult groups and without 'Copulating' observation field
2023 UK Hoverflies Needing ID and without sex annotation with ONLY THE DIFFICULT GROUPS and without 'Copulating' observation field
2023 UK Hoverflies Needing ID and without life stage annotation <= NOTE this has now already been completed! Well done!

Please remember, if you want to go on to annotating old Research Grade records either use the links that were provided during the Annotatathon, or just add &geoprivacy=open&acc_below=500 to the end of your URL.

Hi all,

For December's event I thought we could do something along the lines of 'Twelve Syrphs of Christmas'. The idea being to try to learn and to identify a few 2023 observations of a different genus each day from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night!

Hopefully this will help with our aim to get a few more of 2023's observations through to HRS before they download the year's data.

I'll organise it properly nearer the time, because the needs might change as people identify things over the next couple of weeks but...

In the run up to that it would be a great idea to try to achieve two things:
1) Add as many sex annotations as possible
2) Triage as many observations as possible from higher levels into the correct genus

Both of these things are fantastic exercises for people who are just starting out with an interest in hoverflies, because they don't come with the responsibility of making things 'research grade'. If you make errors, they can be corrected by others and you can learn from them :)

For resources on how to ID hoverflies see the resources page.

Here are relevant links:
EDIT: the sexing appears to be done about as fully as possible now - I've just been through all that remain and I don't think there are any more that I can determine - but someone more experienced might like to have a go at Just the difficult genera - I suspect that a few more of them could be done.
(For adding sex annotations (all hoverflies)
For adding sex annotations (excluding the difficult groups))

For observations not yet identified to genus.

All the best,

Matt

Hello Everyone,

Hope your preparations for the Christmas holiday are going swimmingly. A few weeks ago I suggested this activity - identify the 2023 observations of a different genus each day over the Christmas period - so that we could have a go at learning and identifying a variety of things. As preparation in the meantime I suggested we identify things that are stuck above genus level to fill up the different genera. Since then the number of observations stuck above genus has fallen by just over a third, which is great!

I've set this up so that you can theoretically choose one different genus each day. Each day has four 'pots' from which to choose that one genus. (I mean, don't let me stop you doing more than one genus if you want!). I have indicated in italics which genera I consider to be more straightforward, and in bold which genera I think are particularly difficult. (Straightforward in this context might mean that many species are unidentifiable and it is easy to tell when you should leave it at genus - it does not necessarily mean that all the species are easy to identify precisely).

I want to stress that this is not necessarily about completely erasing the 2023 pile. It is about trying to learn something new. It would be very counterproductive if we identified a lot of things incorrectly in a rush for numbers, and it would cause some frustration at the HRS: much better to take your time and do what you are comfortable with, ask questions of these people (but without spamming any one individual!) where you are not sure or want to query something. It doesn't matter if we do not identify everything.

There are still nearly 1000 observations above genus - so do feel free to have a go at those instead if that is more useful to you. It will help fill up the pots that other people are identifying. I think many of them are either Platycheirus or Melanostoma from a quick glance.

I have organised the pots so that each day the total number of observations from all four pots that we would need to complete to eradicate the 2023 pile is in the region of 3-400. That is not so that we aim for that number (as I said above), but just to spread the potential fairly evenly over the 12 days. If a big genus (e.g. Syrphus) is exhausted before its last day, we can move onto the next one in the pot, but I think it would be a good idea not to randomly jump ahead, so that others will still have a variety to choose from come 12th night!

Dip in and out as you feel inclined! (I mean, you may have other things to do at Christmas!)

When identifying a particular genus from a group, do be sure to check that you can distinguish that genus from others. It's important to check that the genus is correct before trying to identify the species!

Here is a link, just replace 'Syrphidae' with your taxon of choice!

Do keep an eye on the resources page, because if I can I'll add some things there before they come up.

Happy Seasonal Syrphing!

(Two unrelated things I'd like to note: firstly our intrepid annotators have now added life stage annotations to every UK observation (except the few old RGs with obscured locations that were excluded for causing problems - please don't do them!). A fabulous acheivement - carry on at that rate and they could do the whole world by the end of March!

Second: who will get the first hoverfly observation of the new year I wonder!?)

Hello everyone,

I hope those of you who participate in the 12 Syrphs enjoy it and learn aplenty :)

I'm not going to spam you with daily updates or anything (certainly not tomorrow!) I'm sure I'll encounter some of you doing the rounds of identifications. Don't feel the need to identify large numbers - just do the observations you're confident of to the level you're confident of, and tag people in for advice. If you want to share any of your experiences or thoughts, feel free to do so in the comments below here!

Which just leaves me to say; Happy Christmas!

Hi all,

Just thought I could give a progress note. Personally I've enjoyed locking horns with Cheilosia - one genus I've always been wary of. My highlight has been this Cheilosia albipila.

So far we've moved on just over 1 in 6 of the 2023 pile. I don't necessarily know who has chipped in, but whether you've done loads or just a few, thanks again. Unfortunately I can't make a graph of what people have learned or tried for the first time (though you can share in the comments if you wish). Here though is the overall picture:

All the best!

Matt

Happy New Year everyone!

Who will get iNatUK's first hoverfly of 2024!? Sugar solution at the ready!

As well as the usuals, I'll update about the 12 Syrphs.

Identifications

A massive reduction in the NeedsID pile this month is really encouraging. The biggest fallers are those that have been in the 12 Syrphs already. Platycheirus and Melanostoma remain stubbornly high, but they're coming up in the final days of 12 Syrphs.

All in all, 41 genera are down, 8 up (but not by much), and 21 unchanged. The biggest % fallers (with >50 obs to start with) are Syrphus (-84%), Sphaerophoria (-76%), Xanthogramma (-45%), Merodon (-36%), Meliscaeva (-33%), Scaeva (-28%), Xylota (-26%), Eristalis (-23%), Epistrophe (-23%), Eupeodes (-22%), Melangyna (-20%). Some really impressive numbers in there - especially the demolition of Syrphus :-)

A large part of that fall is due to the 12 Syrphs of Christmas: here is the reduction in the 2023 Needs ID pile based on the categories for that event (New Year's Day is, of course, the 8th day of Christmas):

Annotations

There were 242 new observations uploaded in December, and the rate of annotation is exceptionally good.

A big shout out to those of you who kept on blitzing the life stage observations in December - amazing work! The remainder are the old research grade observations with obscured locations that need to remain left alone!! Please no-one be tempted to do them :). The total proportion of sex annotations continues to climb.

Obscured Locations

The proportion of obscured locations in December's new observations remains pleasingly low. Thanks to all of you who have made the switch to pinned locations.

What to look out for this year

I'm hoping to produce some articles during this year to help us increase the diversity of hoverflies we find. For each month I'll have a go at indicating which less-observed species are at their peak, and any tips I can locate on tracking them down. So watch out for that. I'm not ready to do January yet - some species do fly on mild January days - I have seen Episyrphus balteatus and Eristalis tenax on New Year's Day before :-)

Hope you have a great 2024!

All data compiled on 31-Dec-2023