It was almost the last weekend of the summer – August 25th. The Swifts were long gone and family groups of Swallows were feeding low over long meadow. The next day they had left for the south.
Just as I walked down the old track from Brampton to Oxnead, I spotted the unmistakeable profile of a falcon just over Keeper’s Wood. Its flight was erratic. Just at treetop height, interspersed with rapid spiraling changes of direction. I had seen this before – a Hobby hunting for dragonflies. With ease and grace it flew west to east along the spine of the wood and back again before disappearing from site towards the Ash Plantation. The whole show lasting no more than a couple of minutes.
Later that day, whilst walking along the railway line and admiring the sunset, a dragonfly – a Southern Hawker, I think – was diligently hunting midges and other small flying insects. Its flight path formed a triangular pattern, broken only by rapid spiralling changes of direction as it homed in on its prey. The similarity with that of the falcon, the next step up the food chain, was remarkable.
