A Year in the Valley

Many times I have been out and not spotted anything new, but over the last couple of weeks, this has changed and there seems to have been a bug or a biennial that I didn’t see last summer.  This evening I went for an evening walk round the watermeadow and spotted a white crane fly.  I believe it’s an Erioptera flavata but I can’t find any information about habitat or lifeline, other than “damp forest”.  It has a tiny head with beady black eyes, a cone-shaped thorax, and an orange-tinted abdomen underneath sheer wings, which are kept closed when resting.  This is unusual for most crane-flies but note that it only has one pair of wings.  The hind wings are reduced to little pin-shaped stubs called halteres, and you can just see the little pinheads sticking out at the sides.  all  It was flying across the watermeadow and landing on the pendulous sedge, which is pretty much growing into a damp forest!