A snatched meeting on the hard shoulder of a swallow motorway

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/23/country-diary-derek-niemann-dronefly-swallow

Version 0 of 1.

Our paths crossed in the copse, on a grassy track so narrow that politeness dictated that one of us would have to give way. In physical terms, there was no contest: it was me confronting a creature with a brain the size of a pinhead. But the insect seemed reluctant to yield. It hovered at eye level, dropped to waist height, shiny-shelled in the sun, then rose to head height again. A military drone came to mind, an aerial spy and information-gatherer, assessing the opponent’s capabilities. Such a thought association was not random, for this was indeed a dronefly. A thick-abdomened species of hoverfly, it more closely resembles a male honeybee that has spent too long on the nectar – hence the name.

I found myself stopping, partly to admire and puzzle over the dronefly’s bold behaviour, and partly feeling that strange stomach-warming glow that another animal should deign to interact with me. But I had a gate to reach and the creature had other things to do. Somehow, we allowed each other to pass.

Immediately beyond the farm gate at the far side of the copse, a swallow cut across me, slicing past my chest with the smoothest of flight deviations, as if it were water running over a stone. Moments later, another swallow was following the same flight path, but I had stepped out too far – the bird took instant evasive action, veering out over the barley, wings all but brushing the crop’s hairy tops.

I retreated to the woodland edge to allow a third swallow a clear route ahead. And then a fourth and a fifth. Standing on the hard shoulder of a swallow motorway, I witnessed grace from different angles – gaping mouths like headlights coming from the right, narrow wings beating firmly as each bird drew alongside, then tail streamers streaming past. These birds were on a feeding circuit, holding to the woodland fringe, from which insects must have been emerging in some numbers. I thought of my dronefly, hovering still in the air – and then of the hungry birds. Swoop, snatch and swallow.