Guest blog: Sept 2026
Watching falcons can be an amazing experience and something great to share. Here we get a glimpse through the eyes of local enthusiast Alex and his new hobby of watching Hobbies which all started visiting Dorset’s fabulous heathland on weekend walks with his dad. All images © Alex Harvey.
Eurasian Hobby at sunrise
My summer hobby
by Alex Harvey
It’s 5:45am and I’m in position, nestled against a tree trunk, waiting. So far it is very quiet, just the occasional flap of a sleepy pigeon. And then suddenly, I hear it - a sharp high kee-kee-kee-kee rings out from the forest - and a Hobby has awoken!
Already muggy, it's warm and, sat on a comfy mat of pine needles, I'm still quietly sweating from the hike in well before sunrise. I'm half-hidden but that doesn't fool the mosquitoes who are soon at me; without a breath of wind, the bloody thirsty biters likely here to stay. Brushing them off, I look out in front of me where pine trees meet a patchwork of dry heath and wet mire. The tree line curves around to my left, the track disappearing behind the tall pines with their birch and gorse understory.
Hobby through the lens
Hobby at twilight
The hike had started very early, crunching along tracks by torchlight then walking more carefully the nearer I got, looking for grass and heather to muffle my footsteps. Past encounters with deer at twilight, especially the Sika's barks and shrieks that alert everything to your presence, have taught me to approach downwind, slowly and tentatively. Deer are always around somewhere but somehow this morning I made it in without them noticing.
As I’d arrived, there was the unmistakable churring of a Nightjar pulsing low over the heath. In the low light it looped up and swept past, going back and forth, a fantastic encounter on its own, but this was not what I was looking for this morning. I came here to look for Hobbies.
Sunrise is beginning now, with elongated shadows from the woods keeping everything dusky and any photos at this point could be a little blurry so I’ve set the aperture on my Nikon wide open, ISO to auto and shutter speed just about enough to freeze the action. Thankfully, I’ve done my homework so I know where the sun will rise and I’ll have a good chance of any birds in flight being lit from underneath before the sun climbs too high.
This is good as my bulky 180-600mm lens comes in at 2kg, plus the heavy mirrorless camera so I need a bulky tripod too, and once I’m set up, I won’t move. The 600mm zoom allows me to keep my distance, essential when your subject is a protected species like a Schedule 1 raptor.
I want to hear the call again and 45 minutes pass. Down the viewfinder, scanning the tree line repeatedly, there’s plenty Wood Pigeons and a Buzzard is sunning itself on the other side of the marsh. Great-spot and Green woodpeckers work the woods and a nearby family of Stonechat 'chat-chat' away non-stop. I look at my watch, conscious not to be late for work, hoping... 10 more minutes pass. A tiny noise and I turn to see deer cross into the forest and vanish. I'm on the point of giving up when it calls again ke-ke-ke-ke and this time, a silhouette catches the corner of my eye!
The sharp shape of a Hobby darts out from the trees. Then a second flies out over the canopy. Both are calling keenly now, and both are right in front of me, out in the open! Never going much higher than the treetops, they're caught by the morning sun, the light on their wings. The one chasing is the female, who is after whatever prey the other, the male, has brought in. Called a food pass, this is where the hunting male returns with prey and while in mid-air, will present the item in his bill to the female who takes it in her talons. All this requires great coordination and cooperation and helps reinforce the pair bond. The Hobbies do laps over the heath until, after only seconds of cat and mouse, the pass is made and in a couple of wing beats the male vanishes over the trees. The female returns to the forest edge clutching the prey and perches briefly on a dead branch, scans the horizon then she’s gone, taking the food to her nest somewhere in the trees beyond.
Food pass between adult Hobbies
Hobby banking in flight
A huge grin fills my face, I feel amazed to have witnessed this acrobatic display. Their shy nature makes this encounter feel special. But it’s the agility and speed which really leaves me thrilled and hooked with watching them: to witness a bird capable of hunting a Swallow and precise enough to catch a dragonfly in flight is just stunning. And yet when Summer ends, they also must be tough enough to endure a migration to Africa.
This new hobby of watching Hobbies started in the spring with weekend walks with my dad, scouting out local heaths, bogs and ponds. Both of us share an interest in nature and we had a mental list of species we were keen to see and, if possible, photograph. Hobbies were one bird which we kept mentioning and Dorset has lots of great habitat perfect for them.
Brief sightings whilst working as an ecology student out on the heathlands at Arne, were good but these were fleeting and there were certainly no photo opportunities. Then one morning from a popular footpath on my local patch Dad and I heard that now distinctive call when, to our surprise, we witnessed a food pass right there. Despite it being some way off, the meeting of these two predators and precision of passing prey was astounding. It felt like quite an accomplishment to have witnessed it and special to have that shared experience.
A few weeks later, a chance meeting with DRSG's Tim and Jason fuelled my motivation with the aim of reporting back images and details of any Hobbies with colour-rings from their long-running study. This fortuitous encounter that has given me a focus and an objective for my photography, while also playing a small part in conservation research. So, as I finish typing this, my camera batteries are charging and I have a new site to check out where all I will do is sit still, be silent and wait….
Young Hobby in flight