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?

Buzzed off

RSPB staff picked up a dead Buzzard from Weymouth way this afternoon which gave a great opportunity to practice aging them. Only a ringer would be excited by this dead buzzard but obviously its a shame to see such a superb animal not flying around Radipole lake anymore. It had been clipped by a car which broke its wing but that was the only damage (except for it being dead!) so the bird was good condition (again, except for it being dead).

The bird was quite easily aged as a 5 (a bird hatched last calendar year) due to the pale edges to the coverts and no moult limit in the secondaries and primaries. This bird would have started to moult its juvenile feathers in the spring but sadly it ain't going to get the chance. It also had a fairly pale iris which is another juvenile feature. Hopefully I am not talking rubbish as I've only ever ringed one buzzard. If there anyone out there that know better than me please get in touch! Anyway, here's a few photos.

Also worth mentioning whilst I'm blogging. I went out last night on another Woodcock ringing session but there weren't any to be found. In fact there were hardly any birds! The only to targetable birds were two snipe, both of which I caught.

This was a picture from the 3rd December in case anyone is trying to read the date on my notebook!