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This is my first post here, so just a couple of words of presentation... my name is Sarah and I live and work near Rome in Italy. My great passion is nature photography, with a particular enthusiasm for insects and spiders, but I'm far from being an expert. One of my weak areas, is in fact the Diptera, so I hope to be able to learn much from you all here. Do let me know if I do something wrong!
I'd like to start by posting three diptera that have me stumped, all photographed here near Rome (as are 95% of my photos).
The first was taken in a dark holm oak wood...

(I'm trying to upload the photos, but they don't appear... HELP...! What am I doing wrong?) Sarah

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Here (fingers crossed) are the photos. The first taken in a Mediterranean holm oak wood:

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This and the next in a sunnier site

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Here, the third and last. If anyone can give me any guidance, even approximate, I'd be very grateful, Sarah

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Hello Lynkos (Sarah), welcome to the site!
How nice that you are so interested in making photos in nature, it is always nice to see such good pictures as yours!
So, let me be the first one that gives you the names of the families your flies belong to, and later on more experienced people in these families will hopefully tell you more!
First picture; a member of the family Sciomyzidae, the larvae live on snails.
Second and third picture are both in the family Tachinidae, and of the second picture I can tell it belongs to the subfamily Phasiinae
Of the third picture I can say that it is maybe in the genus Exorista, but that is more an educated guess.
Greetings,
Gerard

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Thanks Gerard for your welcome and your contribution to identifying my creatures. I have SO much to learn about the Diptera that I am sure taking part here is going to be great fun and an enormous challenge, Sarah

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Gerard is quite right, even more so than he thought.
Both the second and the third pictures are Tachinidae in the subfamily Phasiinae, which find their hosts in bugs (Hemiptera).
In the second picture not all features can be seen, but in general it looks like a smaller Ectophasia, possibly E. crassipennis.
The third picture is most likely in the genus Clairvillia, with 2 species in Europe. The third antennal segment, however, seems to be a little bit to long for Clairvillia, so then again, it could be something else.

Tachinidae are in general not easily identified, so for a really positive ID I do need to see the specimens.

Theo Zeegers

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Thanks so much Theo. I realise that often my photos are more "aesthetic" than scientifically useful for identification. Now I know that you are all here to give me a hand with the mysteries, I'll try and take more "all-round" shots. In the meantime, even your approximate identification is wonderful and a great help. Many thanks, Sarah