Thanks to volunteer Phil for his report and photos:
"Recent Sightings 26 May – the dragonfly’s nemesis"
Visitors to West Mead hide on 26 May were treated to some truly spectacular high- octane excitement as 2 Hobbies made many sorties out over the pool in front of the hide hawking for dragonflies. This continued on and off for about 45 minutes, and it seems that in the off periods the birds may have been performing similarly over the pool in front of Winpenny Hide.
Anyone who studies dragonflies will know their ability to suddenly change direction through remarkable control of their 4 wings. A Hobby can do this with just 2 wings and at much higher speed. Typically the birds would start from circling gently at a height of up to 100ft, pick up speed on a downward swoop and then skim low over the water surface sometimes executing an astonishing brief twist in the air to catch a dragonfly that had suddenly changed direction.
Hobbies will sometimes chase and catch Swallows and Martins, which in themselves are very fast and agile flyers with a rather similar wing shape to the Hobby albeit much smaller. To be able to hunt these birds successfully is very impressive. This must surely be our most aerobatic raptor species.
Readers of my last post about of Swallows and Martins will understand that in the sunny weather on Friday these birds will have been much higher in the sky catching insects, so the Hobbies on this occasion were in dragonfly hunting mode. Because you couldn’t take your eyes off the birds you never saw the dragonflies that were being caught, but when the Hobbies flew away for a few minutes it became quite obvious that there were several dragonflies flying over the pool.
Only a video could really do this scene justice but, as this is not my forte, I took several still photos, a few of which are shown here.
Notice that the last photo suggests that the Hobby is transferring its prey from talons to beak and they are well known for doing this.
Hobbies are one of the smaller birds of prey being about the size of a Kestrel with a shape and colouration that suggest a small Peregrine with a dark grey back and wings and a pale breast which is streaked rather than barred. Adult birds have distinctive red feathers around the legs sometimes described as “red trousers”. The birds are summer migrants from Africa and about 2000 pairs breed in the UK, mostly in the South but spreading up to Northern England. Pulborough Brooks usually has a few Hobbies throughout the summer into early Autumn and they have nested in the woods on the reserve.
Thursley Common (south of Guildford) is one of the very best places to see Hobbies in SE England because of the abundance of their favourite food and plenty of surrounding trees to nest in. It is also one of the best places in the UK to see dragonflies, and once I had a similar experience watching 6 Hobbies hunting there, but even with just 2 birds the spectacle at Pulborough Brooks on Friday was right out of the top drawer.