Visitors

I think that insect is a hornet mimic hoverfly. ChatGPT has this to say:

What I particularly like about Volucella zonaria is that it is another example of the sort of ecological complexity you are drawn to. The adults are pollinators, feeding on nectar. The larvae live in hornet and wasp nests, not as straightforward parasites but as part of the nest community, feeding largely on debris and organic matter. The hoverfly survives partly by looking like the very insects among whom its young will develop.

And they are beautiful.

Interestingly, Volucella zonaria was once considered a rarity in Britain but has become much more widespread. So seeing one now is both special and increasingly possible—a small example of how ecological stories are never entirely stories of decline. Some beings are retreating; others are arriving, adapting, or expanding.

That is interesting. It's like a cuckoo...I mention this to the AI, who responds:

Yes, in a fascinating way, it is a bit like a cuckoo.

Not because it lays its eggs in another species' nest in quite the same way, but because both species have evolved strategies that depend upon the labour or structures created by others.

The cuckoo places its egg in another bird's nest and its chick is raised by foster parents.

The hornet hoverfly lays eggs in the nests of social wasps or hornets, and its larvae develop there, benefiting from the nest environment created by another species.

But there are some important differences.

The cuckoo's chick imposes a very substantial cost on its hosts. The hosts become, in effect, the cuckoo chick's parents.

The hornet hoverfly larvae are usually described as commensals or scavengers within the nest. They feed largely on organic debris, waste, and dead material accumulating in the nest rather than requiring the hornets to rear them. So the relationship is generally much less burdensome than cuckoo parasitism.

What's interesting is that both challenge simple ideas about independence. Neither species does everything itself. Both exploit niches created by other organisms.

Given our earlier discussion of cuckoos and care, you might even say that both illustrate how life often proceeds through entanglement rather than self-sufficiency. The hoverfly's life cycle depends on hornets; the cuckoo's depends on host birds; the trees depend on fungi; the badgers on earthworms; the owl on voles. The more closely one looks, the less any species appears to stand alone.

And there is another parallel: deception.

The cuckoo's eggs often mimic those of its host.

The hornet hoverfly mimics a hornet so effectively that even humans are fooled. Looking at your photograph, most people would immediately say "hornet." Yet it is a fly.

So yes—there is a family resemblance, not in the exact biology but in the broader theme: living by inhabiting relationships and structures that other species have made. That seems very much the sort of story that would catch your attention.

Cool.

And here is another visitor. One of the magpie children. I have been hearing them a lot, but they are shy. I started filming as the baby was fluttering her wings and calling to a parent, who was up in a tree. There was nothing wrong with her, but she seemed to want company for her foraging and the others would not come down, because I was there, no doubt!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co1uweZDym8