And what came out to feast on the dragonflies? While taking in the sun and scanning the trees behind the hide I noticed a falcon rising up from seemingly the farmers field - where there had been a lot of clanking and whirring from some sort of baler or harvester - and then disappear out of my view as it headed out behind the tall hedge onto the river end of the reed bed.
Ach, probably another Kestrel, I thought to myself.
But then looking out from the hide, it suddenly veered into view high from the right, not hovering like a kestrel and with I think a slimmer body shape with narrower tail and wings, sickle like wings in fact.
Very evidently it was hunting for prey on the water, until as it made its way round to where the RSPB hut was, it suddenly stooped, dropping like a stone almost onto the water, a process it repeated a couple of more times as it followed the water course away to the left.
I've read about it often enough, it would appear that finally I've seen the Langford Lowfields Hobby.
And not before time, it can't be long before it scuds off down south for the winter and was presumably stuffing itself with dragonflies by way of preparation, which are very numerous at the moment.
It wasn't done with me, as I cycled back up the path it was working over Lake 1 before heading into the wood. Excited, its a magnificent fast flier, it seems to be barely moving and then you realise its another hundred metres further away!
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