Eurasian Hobby

The Eurasian Hobby is a small raptor of the same size of a Kestrel. It is more slender, with shorter tail and longer Irealis wings, giving it a bigger martin's silhouette while flying. This morphology is very well adapted for quick aerial pursuits. At rest, the tips of the wings slightly surpass the tail. The female is slightly larger than the male.
The adult has upper parts of steel-bluegray color, with the remiges a bit darker. The head is hooded with black, immaculately contrasted with white cheeks and throat. Between the latter, a narrow black moustache goes below the eye, like a cloak's clasp. A lateral elevation of the white cheeks towards the nape restricts the width of the black at this level. A thin white eyebrow usually tops the dark eye circled with yellow. The cere of the beak is bright yellow.
The lower parts are white, strikingly and abundantly striped with black, except for the throat, un-striped. The culottes, the feathers covering the thighs and the legs, are of a bright red color, and the undertail rufous. From a distance, the underside of the wings and tail looks uniformly gray, but from a closer view, it is seen that this gray comes from the combination of white and blackish vermiculations. Tarses and digits are yellow.
The juvenile has a plumage less gray and more brown above, with the tectrices ruffled of rusty brown color. Below, the background color is more cream-like, and especially so the rufous culottes, which lack the intense coloration of the adult's. The immature acquires the adult plumage in its third year.