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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WHIMBREL" data-source="post: 1246560" data-attributes="member: 8846">Range expansion with HobbyFirstly may I concur with what other contributors to this thread have already stated, it's excellent. Good to know that others are also taking interest in this fascinating small falcon.One of the things that interests me is it's dramatic range expansion both northwards and into the western areas of the British Isles over the past thirty years and in particular the last ten or so. It was more or less assumed that 'global warming' was the prime factor in the species expansion, now the plot has changed and ornithologists are seemingly vague or more honestly uncertain as to the reasons. Perhaps a general range expansion of insect prey items and more of them? Cannot be hirundine prey increases because they seem to be declining in numbers throughout the Hobby's breeding range don't they? More questions just seem to create more questions (and not only for Hobby) but we should remain optimistic about the future status of Hobby if this range expansion and increase in breeding numbers continues.Now then, and this may be somewhat controversial yet thought provoking -can it possibly be that Hobby were always actually more widespread than thought, yet under recorded, and is it mere coincidence that a whole army of birders and naturalist's with the time and also the relatively modern phenomenon of the internet at their disposal are now seeing more Hobby (and other rare species) than ever before and sharing more knowledge, add to this the advantage that we all use or have wonderful binoculars, scopes, digital cameras etc and the penny might start dropping!!! As regards the species egg laying and initial incubation habits I believe that the southern British mean average date of 15th of June is still fairly accurate, what interests me is; does this 'mean average' also apply to Hobby that breed in the 'northern range expansion areas' ie. lets take an imaginary line from say Aberystwyth on the mid-Welsh coast across to The Wash on the other side of the country, could it be that egg laying starts later the further north of this line that Hobby breed? It will be interesting to see the incoming data on this subject during the coming years, and the British Isles is notoriously fickle when comparing similar/same species data with that of continental Europe to understand trends.All in all a very worthy study area for any keen raptor fan looking for a species to research further, I look forward to others adding to this most worthwhile thread.Bill</blockquote>

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