Helophilus fasciatus, home vegetable garden

I have a patch of goldenrods growing alongside of the pea fence in what's supposed to be a vegetable garden, and I allow them a place to flourish because they're a magnet from bees and flower flies. When the sun reached the yellow blossoms in mid-afternoon, I took a photography break to comb the flowers for insects, and when I noticed this dazzler, in the entomological equivalent of pinstripes, I smiled. I got to know the "sun lover" syrphid genus Helophilus last year when I captured nice pictures of them sunning on garden plants at the Florence Griswold art museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut. My mentor Jeff Skevington provided identification corroboration, so, when I spotted this member of the Helophilus congregation in my backyard, I had a good idea of what it was, and a deeper dive into its salient characteristics made me pretty sure I was looking at H. fasciatus, the Narrow-headed Marsh Fly. Jeff writes that they're "one of the earliest and latest syrphids to fly every year." I wonder why we only get them around here at the end of the season.