Bird of Prey, Flying Low

What bird is that? (photo taken by Stephen Burch)

On the morning of BirdFair we went looking first for some birds around the waters. The hides were sparsely populated being far from the excitement of the ospreys. It was grey and threatened by rain. The wooden huts provided shelter.

There were ducks and a few unextraordinary waders then Rose spotted a bird hovering about over to the right. It was a bird of prey. It could have been a kestrel but seemed subtly different. Kestrels have a black stripe quite visible bordering their tail. This bird did not. This bird was speckled, yes, and about the same size but with the lack of this black 'terminal band'.

A kestrel hovers silent and motionless with that tail fanned and head inclined intently toward the earth. Usually, unless you're lucky enough to see one pounce, they will just float on by and find a post to sit on. The bird we were observing did not drift to a resting place; this bird hovered, yes, but frequently swooped down low towards the grass. However, there never seemed to be any small rodents in his talons. He didn't fly off to devour his prey in privacy after any of these swoops. But surely he had caught something? He wouldn't be wasting all this energy. Maybe it was an inexperienced youngster? Either that or he was catching something. Bugs?

We watched the bird hunting for a long time. It was a privileged viewing position, just us there in the hide, just us and the bird not twenty yards away.

I thought it was a hobby. Later we looked in a bird guide and it said that hobbies feed on dragonflies on calm summer days, so that pretty much confirmed it and explained the confusing behaviour. Hobbies are like a cross between a kestrel and a peregrine because they've got moustaches like the peregrine but they're a similar shape and size to the kestrel. They assert their individuality by wearing 'brown trousers'. However, the easiest differentiating factor in this situation was its hunting behaviour and it's this kind of hint that can really expedite the frustrating quest of bird identification, especially if you don't have any binoculars. 

Kestrel (taken by Paul Cecil at Sussex University). Notice the differences. The first picture was a hobby.