Thursday 7 April 2011

Buzzard bashing

Buzzards often get ignored by birders due to how common they are. Birds at Radipole this evening were paying this buzzard a lot of attention. Firstly the male Marsh Harrier had a pop at it. Then the female Marsh Harrier had a go and succeeded in getting the buzzard to move elsewhere.

 It chose a Willow bush to hide in but then this Grey Heron started harassing the poor bird!

My main aim for the evening was to spend another couple of hours watching the Marsh Harriers. This is becoming something of an obsession but what a great obsession to have! They have been busy hunting most of the day and pretty much every time I’ve stuck me head out of the upstairs window I’ve seen at least one hunting over Radipole.
Here are a couple of shots from this evening.

The male is spending most of his time at Radipole at present which makes me wonder what his intentions are. They have now given up fighting every time they see each other and now just glide alongside each other. The female is very vocal when she’s around the male, anyone know what that’s all about?

1 comment:

  1. Spent a good half hour yesterday afternoon watching another (?) male enjoying a brief low-flying recce over NW Lodmoor and then with hardly a wing flap rise up to a few hundred feet on a thermal. What a life! Well, that's presumably if he enjoys being single!

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