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Apr 2021
3:51pm, 24 Apr 2021
449 posts
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RooA
Actually. Probably a kestrel. As it was reddish.
Hrumph.
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Apr 2021
3:54pm, 24 Apr 2021
49,862 posts
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Derby Tup
I’ve seen one hobby in getting on for fifty years of being interested in birds, including spending a lot of time by water. A large dark swift is what it reminded me of
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Apr 2021
4:04pm, 24 Apr 2021
450 posts
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RooA
We've definitely seen either a hobby or a merlin, and we settled on hobby, up here before so I wouldn't have ruled it out but for remembering that the reddish back probably meant kestrel.
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Apr 2021
4:08pm, 24 Apr 2021
19,803 posts
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flanker
Used to have a breeding site for Hobbies near Cambridge (one of it's few plus points!) and spent hours watching them. Like a swift in flight, but I always thought they resembled a peregrine while perched. Must be rare that they are that far north by mid-April; it used to be May before they'd appear down south.
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Apr 2021
4:14pm, 24 Apr 2021
20,804 posts
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Rosehip
There was a breeding pair of Hobbies at The Lodge in Sandy, I didn't see one and don't remember them being mentioned last year, but they probably were there. Will be keeping an eye out from now on for them
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Apr 2021
4:16pm, 24 Apr 2021
451 posts
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RooA
It wasn't just now that we saw the hobby. It was last summer or more likely the summer before because we were driving somewhere. It chased a small bird right in front of the car and they kind of darted back and forth in front of us for a bit so we got a good look at it. It was either a hobby or a merlin.
What I saw today was probably just a kestrel. I only questioned it, and got excited it might be a hobby, because of the wing shape and behaviour (perch, survey and fly rather than hovering). But the colour was kestrel.
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Apr 2021
4:36pm, 24 Apr 2021
19,804 posts
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flanker
Not the ones I was thinking of Ros. The year-on-year sight was RSPB Fen Drayton. There was an old dead tree about half a mile from the car park they used to perch in every year.
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Apr 2021
4:37pm, 24 Apr 2021
3,585 posts
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J2R
First whitethroats of the year for me today.
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Apr 2021
4:40pm, 24 Apr 2021
20,805 posts
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Rosehip
so two sites relatively close then 
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Apr 2021
4:46pm, 24 Apr 2021
4,549 posts
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steve45
Blue skies. No swallows. I wonder at the silliness of their correct name of Barn Swallow! Goodness knows how all those name changes of so many species were "accepted" years ago..
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