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Hello everyone ? can anybody point me in the right direction with this fly? I would guess it's a tachinid of some sort - am I right? It looks very similar to the one in my avatar ... :)

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Musca autumnalis - one of the muscids with a deceptively bent vein M!

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Thanks for the ID, Tony ? could you elucidate on the 'Vein M' remark for this interested newbie? :)

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Look at http://www.dipter...ad_id=8574. The penultimate picture has the veins labelled. (Each vein is given a letter or letter and number code - from these we can work out equivalent veins in other families.) Anyway, you'll see that vein M is angled, as in your specimen. Most Muscidae have a straight vein M - see http://www.dipter...d_id=15156 for instance, but there are exceptions. Generally speaking, a calypterate (big bristly) fly with a straight vein M is a scathophagid, muscid or anthomyiid. If it has a bent vein M, it is a tachinid, calliphorid or sarcophagid. The exceptions are usually easy to recognise, but we all get fooled sometimes! :p

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Thanks for the lesson, Tony - consider me enlightened! :)