Eurasian Hobby (Falco subbuteo) lives in open woodland across Europe, Asia, Africa. It feeds on insects and birds. Its conservation status is Least Concern.
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A real field recording of the Eurasian Hobby, made in the wild.
At just 29-36 cm long and a wingspan of 74-84 cm, the Eurasian hobby packs the power of a falcon into a body that weighs only 175-285 g. This tiny raptor was first formally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, giving it the scientific name Falco subbuteo that endures today. Its sleek, sickle-shaped wings let it dart through open country like a swift.
The hobby's diet reads like a high-speed buffet: it snatches dragonflies, small bats, and swifts straight out of the air, even stealing swallows while they roost. Its long, pointed wings and square tail give it a swift-like silhouette, letting it glide slowly in circles while transferring prey from talons to beak. This ability to hunt both insects and vertebrates on the wing lets the species thrive across far-flung habitats, from African savannahs to European farmlands.
Unlike many falcons that build their own nests, hobbies often hijack old crow or rook nests, choosing trees at the edge of hedges or spinneys where they can spot intruders from a distance. They lay just 2-3 eggs each June-August, and both parents share incubation, though the female does most of the work, with the clutch taking about 28 days to hatch.
The Eurasian hobby spans the Palearctic, breeding across Europe, Asia, then embarking on long-distance migrations to winter in Central and South Africa. One subspecies, F. s. streichi, stays resident from Myanmar to south China.
Rewilding projects like England's Knepp Estate have welcomed the hobby back into restored scrubland, where surveys recorded its presence alongside 1,800 invertebrate species, nearly 10 % of the UK's known vertebrate diversity.
Sources
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As the sun begins to set, the Eurasian Hobby takes to the sky, its sleek, agile form slicing effortlessly through the air as it pursues its prey with lightning-fast precision. With its rapid, fluttering wingbeats, this diminutive falcon is a whirlwind of energy, darting and weaving through the landscape with an unbridled joy that is a wonder to behold. In its element, the Eurasian Hobby is a master of the aerial hunt, its remarkable speed and agility making it a formidable predator in the skies of Europe and Asia.
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