The perfect hobby

They’re not harvesting here yet, but yesterday the sickle shaped wings of the hobby cut through the Shropshire landscape. A pair of ‘big swifts’ darted between the motionless pines and poplars of the Corve Dale making even the swallows look sluggish. They changed direction and altitude in a matter of seconds, elegantly effortless, as they hawked for hawker dragonflies. The hobby is the peregrine’s daintier and more agile cousin, smaller than a kestrel or sparrow hawk it flies direct and at speed. It is a great migrant, wintering, like the swallows it hunts, in Africa, and possibly the pair I saw were already on their way south. Certainly I haven’t spotted them before. I focus the binoculars on them as they circle, silhouetted far above my head, then suddenly, out of the blue, they dive. The chase is on. Struggling to keep up with them I see the slate-blue wings, white cheek patch and the heavily streaked belly. They swoop across the grass almost scratching the hedge top, and then, as they head back into a dizzying climb, they finally flap their wings.