Animal Diaries Archive

Hobbit the Australian Hobby

8 April 2005

This week we'd like to introduce you to the latest addition to our Wandering Wildlife program. His name is Hobbit and he is an Australian Hobby, also known as Little Falcon. Hobbit joined our Australia Zoo family quite a while ago, but is only recently making his visits out into the Zoo more frequent. Isn't he a beauty! Hobbit was located locally after injuring his wing; luckily Australia Zoo came to the rescue and helped him along the way.

Unfortunately though, Hobbit did suffer injuries to his wing and flight feathers, which meant that even after extensive work and rehabilitation, he couldn't be released back into the wild. After months and months of resting and recuperating we hoped his feathers would grow well enough for him to make an appearance in the Live Bird Show here at the Zoo, however this wasn't possible as his follicles were damaged when he was injured, not allowing his flight feathers to continue growing as normal.

So yes, little Hobbit did have a sad start, but with Bird Show giving him lots of love, care and attention he will have lot's of friends and have a safe and loving life here at the Zoo. Now Bird Show love him so much that they want to share him with us Rovers, so currently I am undergoing my Hobbit Training and it's going rather well I think; we are going to become good friends!

Bird Show have asked that I spoil him, which isn't very hard when you check out his big beautiful eyes - they're enough to make you melt.

Hobbit is native to Australia. In fact they have a widespread habitat, found throughout all of mainland Australia and across northern and eastern Tasmania. The Hobby is known for its speed and agility especially when it comes to hunting. Catching prey includes large flying insects, small mammals, bats and even small birds up to thier own body size. WOW, that's amazing!