Buzzards

[Jessiedog]

Christ - how do they kill them?? Something like a hare must put up a bit of a fight.

A small hare.

But yes, even a rabbit can put up a hell of a fight and hares are mental in comparison.

They use their feet and talons to kill. Extraordinarily strong grip with razor sharp claws. It can still take some time though (nature is cruel that way,) and once I'd caught up with them tussling on the ground, I used to help my Harris "dispatch" rabbits quickly, with a knife through the brain, while carefully minding the hawks toes - it's less cruel.



It's nice to hang a rabbit for a few days and then cook a nice, long, slow, tender, stew - and you can be sure you're not going to bite into any buckshot. (Sorry veggies.)



Woof

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

One of my most pleasureable experiences was taking my son out bird watching in Cornwall a couple of months back down around Penrose Walk by Loe Pool. We kept seeing glimpses of these birds over the tree tops but couldn't get any sort of decent look at one.

Then, we came around a bend in the pathway onto a small enclosed inlet with a kind of u-shaped pathway around the lake and straight ahead of us and hovering was a buzzard, still and magnificent in the sky about 50 metres above us. We took turns with the binoculaurs and slowly moved to as close a spot underneath it as we could, going 'wow' and 'blimey' as you do.

After about 5 minutes of watching, the buzzard suddenly began to descend, straight downwards like a lift sinking, to a point within about 20 metres of where we were standing. As it reached the rushes at the edge of the lake, there was a mini-scramble and then it rose up again with a snake/eel/sloe-worm in its talons and flew to rest in the branch of a tree nearly next to us. As it gobbled its meal, we struggled not to shout with excitement at seeing all this so close up.

Then it flew off and we carried on walking. My son's been mad on bird watching ever since. Can't say whether it 'eeked', 'meewed' or 'honked' tho cos its beak was full

 

[Pieface]

I thought only kestrels hovered. Is that a myth?

 

[northernhord]

I find that geese give a good honk

hehehe

 

[vipper]

I thought only kestrels hovered. Is that a myth?

Skylarks hover as well, I believe. Or fly in very small circles.

 

[Pieface]

There's a massive difference there, Vipper

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I thought only kestrels hovered. Is that a myth?

Guess its a myth cos we were sure this was a buzzard and it was deffo hovering. I think they need a bit of a head-breeze to do it tho.

 

[Jessiedog]

Guess its a myth cos we were sure this was a buzzard and it was deffo hovering. I think they need a bit of a head-breeze to do it tho.

Indeed they do.

They more like "hang in the wind" than hover, adjusting their wings accordingly, the updraft from a rising embankment or similar in a strong breeze is often favoured.

Common Kestrels, on the other hand, can hover (almost,) like humming birds on nary a breath of wind - although they too, naturally, prefer a breeze.

Interestingly (or not), from a falconry perspective, it's extremely difficult to train a Kestrel to hover from scratch. They're great for peeps to learn the ropes of stooping to the lure, waiting on, etc. but once they trained in the basics, kestrels tend to stick to behaving like a mini "normal" falcon and never get into really hovering. I guess it's the training that inhibits the development of this semi-instinctual, learned-in-nature behaviour.

I love Kestrels, have trained at least half a dozen in my time.

Peregrines (or Peregrine/Saker hybrids) are my favourite hunting-falcons and nothing beats a Goshawk for hawking-for-the-pot



Woof

 

[weepiper]

Must just be the cornish ones that say 'KEE' then I'll try to find a way of recording them and then you'll see

The Scottish ones say 'KEEee' too

 

[geminisnake]

There are Kestrels nesting in the hopper-heads where I sometimes work. They have eaten all the ducklings on the pond.

I'm surprised that kestrels ate the ducklings. Kestrels rarely eat feathered things, unless they don't see ducklings as birds because of their size. Sparrowhawks eat feathered things.

See or hear buzzards on a daily basis here They get bullied by the crows sometimes though

 

[geminisnake]

Well, that's 2 sound files now and they still aren't a-mewin'

If that really sounds like a mew to you maybe you need to go to the doc.

Have to agree with that, it sounds F all like a cat. Our cat was NOT impressed by the noise in her living room though!! She was a bit
I am suspecting there is a difference in hearing ranges between selamar and weeps, madz and me. I suspect selamar may be male??

Pie Eye, hubby does butterfly and moth counts every summer and here there is an increase and new species to this area every year

 

[selamlar]

I suspect selamar may be male??

True, but can I say in my defense that one of these

landed on a tank about 20 metres from my office on Monday. Kick Ass!

 

[madzone]

True, but can I say in my defense that one of these

landed on a tank about 20 metres from my office on Monday. Kick Ass!

Did it bark?

 

[purves grundy]

We've been getting lots of Black Kites passing overhead the last month or two, on their way back to European / North Asian breeding grounds. Migration's almost up now, but at its height I counted eighty roosting in a tree near a lake near my house, and laying in my hammock I counted 15 go over in half an hour. Stunning birds, they find thermals and circle for hours.

 

[selamlar]

Did it bark?

Funny you should mention that.

 

[northernhord]

Funny you should mention that.

Christ these buzzards have a wide vocal range, they kee they mew, they peeeow and now the fuckers bark

 

[selamlar]

Twas not a buzzard, twas either a golden, or an imperial, eagle

 

[Pieface]

We've been getting lots of Black Kites passing overhead the last month or two, on their way back to European / North Asian breeding grounds. Migration's almost up now, but at its height I counted eighty roosting in a tree near a lake near my house, and laying in my hammock I counted 15 go over in half an hour. Stunning birds, they find thermals and circle for hours.
]

80! That's amazing....I notice you're in the States, Purves - have you ever seen a bald eagle (the one with the white head???) or an osprey??? They're very cool...

 

[fogbat]

Four pages in, and still not one fricking Buzzard recipe.

Suburban, I am disappointed

 

[northernhord]

Four pages in, and still not one fricking Buzzard recipe.

Suburban, I am disappointed

Ive googled to see if there is any buzzard recipes and cant find any, I suggest buzzard and chips and peas with a large glass of Chianti

 

[ICB]

Got loads of buzzards around here (and red kites, and the odd peregrine)

Saw one casually sitting on a fence post at the top of the hill a few weeks back

Most amusing antics I've seen was a buzzard cruising along the valley getting mobbed by crows for intruding on their territory, it would wait til the very last moment then lazily dip out of the way, not bothering to disembowel or decapitate them as it so easily could, then when it got just out of their territory so the crows backed off it wheeled around again to make another pass

Cool fuckers

 

[geminisnake]

True, but can I say in my defense that one of these

landed on a tank about 20 metres from my office on Monday. Kick Ass!

Whoopee!! We have a visting sparrowhawk which sits on our fence(or in the various shrubs) eating it's lunch/breakfast/tea

Pie Eye, you get ospreys here mate. You should get them in the north of England, various bits of Scotland and loadsa places in Wales, iirc.

 

[Jessiedog]

Black kites are ubiquitous all year round in these parts.

And we often see white bellied sea eagles.

As well as the occasional Peregrine.

Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

Oh......


And, of course, the Chinese Goshawk.

Woof

 

[purves grundy]

Oh......


And, of course, the Chinese Goshawk.

Woof

Great pic. The amount of wildlife in HK is astounding

80! That's amazing....I notice you're in the States, Purves - have you ever seen a bald eagle (the one with the white head???) or an osprey??? They're very cool...

Sadly / happily not - I live in Burma! We do get ospreys wintering here, again I see em on the little lake near my home.

 

[Jessiedog]

Great pic. The amount of wildlife in HK is astounding

Yer.

The biodiversity is astonishing.

We have 22 species of frogs and toads, for instance, one of which (the Romer's Tree Frog) is endemic to HK (can be found nowhere else on the planet,) and among our 112 species of dragonfly, four are also endemic.



Oh.

And apparently, there are more species of tree in HK than in the whole of Western Europe combined.

In February [2007] researchers published the first encyclopedia of local flora in nearly a century. They compiled 3,000 species, double the 1912 edition. The increase was due in part to species that were once scarce due to habitat destruction, but had flourished as forests were increasingly preserved, one of the authors told the South China Morning Post. It seems like a hopeful sign about the ability to repair environmental damage if people act in time. That would be true not just for Hong Kong but the rest of China as well.

http://time-blog.com/china_blog/2007/04/wild_hong_kong_1.html



Woof