A snatched meeting on the hard shoulder of a swallow motorway

Sandy, Bedfordshire A swallow cut across me, slicing past my chest with the smoothest of flight deviations, as if it were water running over a stone

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.