Early morning I head to the tree to check on the Hobby. Great news: As I approach the tree, two adults go crazy and begin to mob me, meaning they’re obviously trying to stop me from getting near. I quickly check our bird: It is looking fine, and has move to a more open branch. I quickly retreat and watch from Fowlmere Road, some distance away hoping to see it being fed.
After a while, one of the adults returns and sits with food (looks like it may be a House Martin) near the top of the tree calling our bird. For the next hour it continues to do so but our bird, despite trying to climb higher fails to get to the adult. Then suddenly from the adjacent tree (one of only two in the field), a much stronger looking juvenile flies out (it’s first flight?) and takes the food from the adult before returning to the tree it came from! Looks like we missed the nest in the other tree! I get back in the car, then walk down to the other tree and see two quite healthy juveniles in a nest below…
So needing to make a decision, I contact Dave Salmons to tell him the situation and we decide that, with the help of a borrowed Cherry-picker, we will get our bird out of the first tree and put it as close to the nest as possible.
Around lunch-time, with the help of Tom, we go back to the site. Fortunately the adult birds are away hunting. We therefore move quickly hoping to minimise disruption and manage to get our bird out of the first tree. It obviously hasn’t been fed, so we give it some chicken that we had pre-prepared and go over to the other tree. As soon as we get near the strongest of the two Hobbies flies high some distance. As we get closer the other bird reluctantly takes flight (probably the first time it has left the nest). With no birds in the nest, and the Cherry-picker at it’s maximum height, we decide to put it in the nest. A Woodpigeon is flushed from a nest with eggs in about two-feed below! Potential Hobby food! The bird seems reluctant to go in the nest but we eventually get it in.
Safely back on the ground (it was quite nervy!) we now need to deal with the other juvenile. It’s sitting not too far away on the ground so I circle around it so that if it can fly it will hopefully go back to the nest. I get very close, but just before I get to it it flies high into the air and lands at the top of a tall tree on the other side of the field. Knowing that it can fly and should return to the nest once the parents return, we make a hasty retreat before they do.
In the evening I go back to check, and not wanting to disturb the birds do so from the cover of Foxton Woods. There are only two juveniles in the nest and I’m too distant to see if one is our bird, so needing to see if it on the ground I leave my cover to take a look. The adult which has been sat on the ground some distance away is obviously alarmed, so I quickly take a look. One of the birds is our bird, the one staring at me!
Presumably the oldest juvenile is hunting with the adult. Happy, I quickly leave the area. I then sent a message to Marcus Kohler who had been following events from afar and was keen to see the birds when he returned to Foxton in the morning…
Hi Marcus,
The Hobbies are at the top of the tree arrowed red. View roughly from the blue X. You can only see the nest from this side (it isn’t really ‘scope-able from the road as the nest is the wrong side). There’s a bit more cover now than when the photo was taken! Try and keep away from edge of wood; if the adults clock you they won’t return to the nest until you have gone. I really don’t want people to know about this for that reason, along with the fact that it is a schedule 1 species and we had to get to the top of the tree (disturbing one of the siblings) to put it back. I think it will probably be strong enough tomorrow to get back again if it came out, but if not I’d also want to do the same without people watching.
I think it is the runt of three birds. The eldest sibling can fly well and wasn’t seen in the hour or so I watched this evening and may have been with the adult as there was only one around. The middle one probably took its first flight inadvertently when putting our bird in the nest and landed on the ground some distance away. I did think it may not be able to truly fly and thought we may have to put it back too(!) but when I got near, it flew and landed high in trees on the left hand side of the photo so I wasn’t concerned about it. It was back in the nest later in the afternoon. I’ve seen the adults bring in a House Martin, but I think they’re mostly picking out large bugs (cockchafers maybe?) from the recently harvested field.
