FLIES -and the "Progressive Bee fly"

(Above-The Progressive bee fly) (Below- I have not identified yet)

(ABOVE- an unknown species of fly) (Below-The Progressive bee fly)

All these flies were hard to photograph but this one was not only the
hardest but the strangest. It does not seem to be any kind of Bee fly.
I have yet been unable to identify it. The huge eyes colored like
this I’ve never seen. I photographed this one outside my dad’s
house near San Jose, California. I did not have enough time to
take pictures when I was there– I will be back, both to visit these
flies but continue to understand the strange spiders I photographed
the first time. All are new to me except then Barn spider and the
Zygiella Atrica–I’ve dubbed those “Winter Weavers” because I’ve
found them alive and well during Christmas time in Portland
surviving freezes and moderate winters when I visited from
Hawaii each year. One of many spiders I used to smuggle into
Hawaii when I was a kid.



(ABOVE- an unknown species of fly) (Below-The Progressive bee fly)

Why are they called “Progressive” Bee flies? That I don’t know.
And these flies called Exoprosopa, are very difficult to photograph.
Recently I perfected a method of using some of my old 35mm
lenses with my digital that actually works. This gives me about
three feet distance to take shots like this. But when I took this
a couple of weeks ago I had not yet tried that. I used my long-
macro lens and this difficult to photograph fly was finally brought
into focus. I had to be five or six inches away in order to get it
or they would fly off. These flies look like flying bears. I’m
surprised they are not called “woolly flies” or something. This
family has a wide range of different looking flies however and
“Progressive bee fly” might have just been a name given to the
them for any number of reasons. It could be one of those moments
I’m just missing something really big about these flies that very
obvious. I photographed these near the salt flats on the California
Nevada border.
When my dad and I go camping and hiking--we go where nobody
goes. Miles and miles from any stores, rangers, or
other campers. We can't stand RV's, pay camp sites--and if the
place has signs its pretty much overused. We go camping to get
away from all that crap! At the best sites are remote enough you
don't see city lights on the horizon at night even over the curve
of the Earth. In such a place I took these shots just a few dozen
feet from our self-made fire pit. My GPS put us at allmost 8000ft
looking over the salt flats into Nevada.