Flower fly

I was hiking a meadow path this afternoon, a combination of sun and clouds, and by a patch of Fleabane, I heard a high-pitched buzzing and noticed what I thought were small bees working the wildflowers. On this summer's agenda is to learn more about Hymenoptera, the bumblebees in particular—I have a new field guide to the group—and while these noisemakers clearly were too small to be bumbles, I thought they might make great subjects for macro photography. Of course, I didn't have my trusty old 55mm Nikon micro with me, so I had to rely on my equally trusty 55-200mm Nikon telephoto zoom for closeup purposes. In good light, it does the job, and while it's not perfect for the task, it's clearly not bad. Turns out that the buzzing wasn't coming from a bee after all, but rather from a bee mimic: a Syrphid fly designed to resemble a miniature hymenopteran. This subterfuge, I'm guessing, is evolution's way of providing the fly with a bit of protection: Stay away from me... I might sting.