Hobby action

Spotted Crake not being very helpful

all taken last night in the semi-darkness and the bird was not as close as it had been; today it was way off so no improvement in a few records --

male Hobby brings in mixta

male arrives with a Migrant Hawker for the two juvs to fight over; both adults seemed to be tempting the juvs with insect prey then flying off presumably trying to get them to catch their own; not seen this behaviour before

juveniles waders

why are juvenile wader plumages so attractive --

Heron stalking godwits

what age this Hobby?

vital tail clue

timing

Pied Flycatcher rarity

in 32 years doing bird surveys in the forest I have never seen a Pied Flycatcher so when I stopped to look at a nice sunny corner that produced 7 Spotted Flycatchers and various warblers it was a slight shock to pick up this Pied Fly; it initially proved elusive but then took to hovering and feeding over a stony path in front of me taking small moths and the odd butterfly -- from the Birding World article I make it a first-winter and from the tail and uppertail covert colour possibly a male but sexing is said to be optimistic in first winters

a few Hobbies

female Hobbies seem to come in two main types; the ones that scream when you are anywhere within 300m of their young and the ones that just keep quiet and slip off round the edge of the nearest tree when you are not looking; calm and quiet females seem to produce quiet and calm young which are more approachable but they are also much harder to find because they keep quiet and perch unobtrusively -- some nice video of these two juvs to upload with the iphone and scope -- must get a new digi-scoping camera-- all broods I have seen this year have been of 2 rather than the usual 3 from the study pairs