A hunting Hobby

I can see a bird of prey high in the sky. I don’t recognise it, so I train my lens on it and see it has red trousers. It’s a Hobby, Falco subbuteo. It’s so distant I can only produce a composite of its flight. I’ve seen them before, hunting dragonflies in Somerset.

It’s in the sky with House Martins below and Common Swifts at the same height. I see it suddenly dive, fast and shallow and am amazed to see it’s hunting Swifts. It’s not successful this time and drifts over the blocks of flats and away.

What an amazing thing to witness.