The Hobby

Monday July 16th 2018

After the hot sunny weekend when lots of people visited Shilley pool, I checked the area for litter and signs of BBQs that had been left. Happily, there were none.

On my way up to Cosdon, a Hobby flew past about 20m away. Someone once told me that if you see an impossibly big swift, it’s a Hobby. They are rare summer visitors, but this one was the third I’ve seen this year. It is a wonderful falcon, not dissimilar to a Peregrine, but a little more slender. They are fast enough to catch swallows and martins,  and will take dragonflies when hunting near water.

The inventor of Subbuteo, the table football game, was a keen ornithologist. The Patent Office refused him permission to call the game Hobby as it was already in use.

The name he then chose comes from the Latin name for the Hobby;   falco subuteo.