Growing garden spiders

Some of the garden spiders are starting to reach good sizes. As soon as they become apparent I realise it's well into summer, and that despite the dismal weather spiders haven't stopped feeding and growing. This one is probably not quite yet mature, but it is likely to be a female.

Black and Yellow Cranefly

With the warm temperatures of the last few days, I leave my office window open, and insects get in at night. This morning, arriving to work I found this cranefly, likely Nephrotoma flavipalpis, recognisable by the dark spot towards the end of its wings and mostly yellow head. Its bulbous - as opposed to pointy - abdomen indicates it is a male. He landed on the box of the Concise Edition of BWP, which provided a suitable white background, although the leg of a flamingo is visible in the photo below.

Zebra-striped hoverfly

It is unfortunate that not many hoverflies have English names - only the Marmalade Hoverfly and the Large Narcissus Fly come to mind. However, this large hoverfly, Scaeva pyrastri, with its very distinctive bold black and white abdominal pattern and hairy eyes could be named the Zebra-striped hoverfly, as suggested by John Wall in BugGuides. It is a high summer hoverfly, I have only seen it in July and August, and is a regular immigrant from the continent, and comes here to breed. It can feed on both tubular, deep flowers, like Red Valerian, Verbena bonairensis, Agapanthus and Lavender and also on flat ones like Fennel. Today's was the first of the year.