Volucella zonaria, the hoverfly heavyweight !

Settled on a leaf in the garden, I was delighted to see a Hornet Mimic Hoverfly Volucella zonaria had swung by. Initially I approached with trepidation not knowing what it was, fearing it was some huge stinging fly until I was close enough to realise it was Syrphidae in nature, the largest of Britain's Hoverflies. The picture does not really give the scale of this invert, over 20mm. A really nice close encounter with a spectacular, and not that frequent, Hoverfly.