Today I spotted a couple of insects that I had not seen before, and certainly not photographed. The first was a Blue Banded Bee or Amegillia cingulata, an Australian Native Bee with a distinctive appearance – it is a bit plumper and instead of yellow stripes, it has beautiful turquoise ones, and the number of stripes indicates the gender. This one had four, so that makes it a female. They seem to fly very fast, and do not settle for more than a micro-second, so these shots are not as well focused as they might be. I hope there are more around as they are really very beautiful.
The next one is a Bee Fly or Bombyliid. I had not seen one of these before either, it was about the size of a stout bee and was feeding on nectar from a Buddlia flower.
I also saw some Skippers, small butterflies, and I think these are both Lyell’s Swifts or Pelopidas lyelli.
Then there were the usual Honey Bees and Cabbage Butterflies on the lavender too……
smcbphoto 
Do you have a book that gives you all the names etc Sue?