Lekking with the flower flies

Lekking is a breeding behaviour where males (usually) of a species gather together at a place not particularly well represented by important resources.  Rather, it is a place for males to display, to claim territory, and to exhibit their dominance over others of the same species.  The goal is to attract females.

A lek is an aggregation of males exhibiting lekking behaviour.  I have seen flies in a lek before, but never understood what I was witnessing.  As I researched the behaviour, I found that flower flies, also called hoverflies (European term), will display in such a manner.  The flies find a sunny spot, preferably near some deep shade so they stand out like a lighthouse beam on a dark night.  It was hard not to see them.  Each one would have its own territory.  They would hover in one place until another would-be competitor came into their zone, then zip towards it and chase the intruder off.  Anything that came within about a four foot radius was subject to such action.

I shot the images with my 500mm f/5.6 prime; the closest focus distance is about 10 feet, so I couldn't get much in the way of magnification.  I used 3d focus tracking which helped secure a reasonable focus, but found trying to lock onto one of the insects difficult.  I had to use manual focus override to get the focus close and then found that I could get a lock.  The flies were never in one place very long though, so I only achieved moderate success.  I found that a faster shutter speed with a higher ISO produce better images.  I had to decrease the noise though through the luminance dial as the higher ISO values produced quite a lot of it.  Given the amount of magnification required, I thought the photos were pretty fair.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com