Category: Australian Hobby

There comes the day in every young Australian Hobby’s life that it must learn about serious hunting on the wing.
Grasshoppers and dragonflies are great food, but real protein is needed for them to grow.
Dad is not going to be there as a free Uber-delivery for ever.

And so we ventured out on a day when he was getting serious about the training program.
First step was to get them good and hungry.  So his regular callbys with quick top-ups, seized-up faster than tripod legs immersed in seawater.

When he did come by they had two new lessons to literally ‘grasp’.

The first was taking the prey from him as he did his best to remain stationary in the sky, holding the latest Fairy Martin.
Then after a few attempts at that he would let the Martin drop, and watch as the young bird followed it down and quickly managed to secure the meal.  He also invariably rolled over in a small stoop to pace the tumbling meal, just in case anything should go awry.  Needless to say on the attempts we saw, it was 100% score all round.

By the end of the morning, the young were now quite capable of chasing, if not catching the dwindling Fairy Martin fraternity.

At least one came back after a rocketship foray, and if there was a food exchange I missed it, but the young bird came in high and fast so I concluded that it was a successful strike.  (If not, no doubt by day’s end their score would have been gaining an impressive run total, just like the Australian Cricket team.)

I suspect this will be the last close quarter encounters with the young. No doubt they will be fed far less and make their own field trips and return with food.  All that will happen well beyond the tree line where we currently are working and then… Before we know it, the paddock will be bereft of the young.  The parents will move on to other territory and we’ll not see them regularly until next year.
Not sure who has learned the most, but we have certainly gained some interesting anecdotal insight into their growth and development.

Following on yesterday’s Interlude as the young Hobbys continue to develop their inflight hunting skills.

Presently the air is filled with big juicy plump dragonflies.  Among them thousands of Tau emerald.  They seem to enjoy working high in the air over the orchard near the Hobby’s domain.  Perfect for developing inflight skills.

At present it seem that the female, Seraphima, has taken a holiday, and the male, Bronte, is left to bring the young one’s hunting skills to the fore. What better way than to take them into the swarms of dragonflies.

I wish I could explain how it all works, but it usually is so high up, and so far out that I’m really watching tiny shapes streak across the sky, change direction in an instant, climb up, dive down and do it all at speeds that bend my mind, let along ponder what g-forces they somehow overcome.
Fascinating.

Here are few rather than try and explain it all so inadequately.

What came next was practice on the main course

It has to be said that the learning curve for young Australian Hobbys would best be described with an exponential curve rather than a lazy sine curve wandering about aimlessly.

For a start, the speeds that all the activities take place is super-sonic.
Ask anyone who has tried to keep them in the viewfinder as they speed past.
“Oh, glad you asked!  It is next to impossible to keep them in the viewfinder as they speed past.”

Most of the shots below were taken at quite some distance out.  These little dudes have discovered that they can dig into the air and be a kilometre out of sight before you can say, “Now where are they going?”

It’s more likely, “There they went.”

Over the past few days they have been learning to hunt dragonflies. Interesting as the adult, no doubt its Bronte, the male, lets them run hard and fast and then seems to manoeuvre through their actions, helping, or at least guiding. A few times catching and then dropping the prey for the young bird to snatch away.

Early on, he was arriving with a fresh kill, and then allowing the youngster to snatch it away from the perch.  A day or so later and he developed a new strategy.
He would come in, and then ‘hover’ for a few seconds with the prey while the young came up and took it.  Now there are several actions going on here that I could determine.
First:  He has to swoop up, and stall, before falling backdown.  In those few seconds, (like a diver from a springboard) there is a delay between the going up, and the coming down.

Second: The young at first were a tad clumsy. Tad being a euphemism for very clumsy.  But a few attempts of crashing into Bronte really honed the skill and they both soon learned to get the timing right.

Third: He would roll over and follow them down to be sure that nothing untoward, such as dropping the prey occurred. If it did, he simply closed wings and sped past them to retrieve it and repeat the food pass.

I only saw one food drop.

And as they say: Therein endeth the lesson.
Moving on to dragonflies and other flying creatures tomorrow.

Enjoy

By the end of 2020, the young birds were for all intents and purposes self-sufficient.

We hadn’t seen either of the adults for at least two weeks, and the young were now skilled at finding their own food.  Hunting on the ground for insects, raiding the nearby orchard for tasty morsels on the fruit trees, or helping themselves to the young recently-fledged Fairy Martins.

And then all too soon so it seems, the trees became quiet.  The loud calls of success with each catch was stilled, and they were on their way from home into the wide world around.

An end to a fascinating few weeks of learning from the birds just that little more about the lives of Hobbys.
As Mr An Onymous said to me today, on a slightly different subject, “It is one of the great mysteries of bird photography that you never get to repeat an event.  Once the birds have moved on, you’ll have plenty of shots, and memories, but it most unlikely that you’ll ever again be able to replicate that season.”

Perhaps one of his many (un)proved theories, but I did get the drift.

So, we come, as Bob Seger sings, to “Turn the Page”.

And there is the back cover of the Field Notes. The close of the book.

Enjoy

Welcome back from Lockdown.
While others have found all sorts of things to complain about, and decry the efforts of those in charge, I on the other hand, have gratitude and awe, not only for the people whose job it has been to try to contain the outbreak, but the general feeling of most Victorians to simply work in their own little way to help stop the spread.
That nearly 40,000 people lined up to be tested yesterday says something about the confidence we have.

As Dan said, “I am proud of all Victorian who have done their bit”.  Seriously think we should be concentrating on the good things that have come out of the lockdown and stop nit picking over ‘he said, she said’.
Nuff said

How quickly Hobbies grow.
Just a few weeks out of the nest, and they had developed great strength and wing control.  They were also hunting for themselves.  And I didn’t see the adults in the area again. They might well have made visits, but certainly not like the first few weeks.

The nesting location is on a large river bank cliff and falls away to the Werribee Open Range Zoo on one side, and the old Heritage Orchard along the river flats.
Ideal training grounds for the young Hobbies, who were now flying rapidly almost out of sight over the Zoo, or disappearing into the trees way down river at the end of the Orchard. And.  Just as quickly reappearing.

Early on, they were still playing aerial games together, but very quickly learned to hunt in the trees lining the river banks and much too hard for photography.  Each success though was loud and sustained.

Think I have one more page in the Field-Notes left.

Enjoy

When new neighbours arrive, birds are as inquisitive as the next one.

However it didn’t always go well for the young Hobbies as some of the neighbours have a distinct dislike for raptors, small, large, young or old.

A constant source of interaction was with the Galahs in the area.

Here is one such event.

Next in line, several more turn up and chase the young Hobby about the sky.  The little dudes still don’t have real flying skills, so it’s a pretty much one way competition.
Here the galahs have outpaced and out-turned the Hobby, but give the impression of being chased.  Not so.

Early morning and one of the young was having some quiet time in the sunshine when a pair of Rainbow Lorikeets dropped by for a looksee.  Much more robust in their attack, and working as a team, the young Hobby in the end had to abandon its rest spot.

Close to the last pages in the field notes.
The Hobbies quickly gain flight experience and then were off to explore the world around the nesting location.  A week on and they could disappear almost at the blink of an eye, and quickly reappear breaking all records in a sharp dive descent.

Their next adventure was learning to hunt along the tree-line nearby, but for a photographer there was not chance of keeping up with the action.

The young Hobbies were well established but still needed to be feed by the female.
In this sequence she divides up the catch among two of the young. The other would not miss out, as another meal was certainly on the way.

Had this ready to go and then got side-tracked last night and overlooked the Publish button.

The young Hobbies had flown. Three hungry mouths on the wing.
It is interesting to observe them in the nest. Too big to just settle down, too young to actually be out and about.
After lots of wing practice, hanging on to the nest, and exploring the close branches, they seem to have full knowledge of what is required, but the connection between flapping and letting go is not made.
Then, it’s seems, almost on a whim, they turn, flap, and are aerial.  Not that it’s great flying, mind you,  straight lines mostly, and of course the challenge of slowing down enough to grab onto a branch for security.

Presumably they were airborne the day before we arrived, as they seemed to have settled to the jobs at hand.  Dad was still bringing in food, Mum organising it and distibuting in an even manner.
Three perfect little carbon copies.