Category Archives: Bird of Prey

Why Leave the Garden?

March 9, 2014 by Words | 6 Comments

Why leave the garden? It was another beautiful sunny day. Quite mild, and more time for getting on with the spring clear up. Not that it’s too much of a hardship with so much to see just by looking around. And there’s one big surprise at the end.

Overhead, several buzzards flew over late morning. The gulls chased them without ever really getting serious; just enough to shepherd the buzzards directly over the garden.

Common buzzard over garden

Common buzzard over garden

Common buzzard over garden

The gulls were rather more upset when a heron crossed the sky. They cleared a large passage for it, and by the sound of them were clearly not happy. It’s the first time I’ve seen a heron from the garden so although it was some distance away and the shot isn’t up to much, it’s here as part of the ongoing record.

grey heron over Woodingdean

A good part of the afternoon was spent removing weeds and leaves from the garden pond. It was somewhat neglected last year and was becoming a bit of a tangle. I clean it out by hand and spotted several newts (plus I inadvertently caught one, but quickly returned it to the water). The job’s only part done, but it does mean that tonight I was able to take this photo of one of the many newts.

smooth newt

Slightly off topic is this next shot. It was taken during the day but I’ve converted it to black and white. I had hoped to see a plane leave trails directly across the moon (I think I’ve got a shot like that from several years ago), but this will do.

moon and plane

The big (and very welcome) surprise comes towards the end of these video clips from the trail camera. Plenty of foxes, and a couple of badgers to enjoy.

Watch the video and you’ll know what I’m looking forward to seeing soon!

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens except the newt which was taken with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.

Also posted in Badger, Foxes, Moon, Newt, water birds Tagged , , , , , |

Buzzards at Falmer and Treating Pretty

March 3, 2014 by Words | 2 Comments

Plenty more rain today. I took to the local woods at lunchtime in the hope of catching sight of a buzzard. I sheltered under the trees for a while, but without any luck. As the drizzle eased a little I headed to the neighbouring field, and saw this.

buzzard

While I was watching the intensity of the rain increased, but things were only just starting to get interesting. The buzzard flew across to some fence posts and I tracked it with the camera. There was a second buzzard, engaging in a mild dispute with a crow.

buzzards and crow

The crow won that encounter, but the second buzzard was less easily put off and settled down adjacent to the corvid.

Common buzzard

The rain got heavier. I waited. The buzzard gave in first and headed to the woods for some shelter.

buzzard in flight

buzzard in flight

buzzard in woodland

I lost track of it after that, and I too needed to find some shelter as the rain intensified. Still, a really nice local encounter and well worth the soaking.

Meanwhile I’ve been becoming more concerned about Pretty. She’s been scratching a lot (foxes do, of course), but some of the smaller breaks in her coat have become larger and I do suspect she may be suffering from early stages of mange. Apart from that she seems well enough, and tonight we’ve started her on a course of treatment. She’ll receive four weekly treatments, which should do the trick. Here she is checking out the first dose.

Fox being treated for mange

I’ll keep you updated on her progress.

As a final note I’ve disabled the auto-email notifications from the site for the time-being as one of the accounts used here seems to have been spoofed as a spam address. I’ll attempt to send notifications manually, but if you have subscribed do check your spam trap. If you are not already subscribed you can do so via the contact form linked in the header. See also the note in the side bar.

Camera note: all buzzard photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. the fox being treated for mange taken with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM.

Also posted in Foxes, mange Tagged , , |

Flying High

March 1, 2014 by Words | 4 Comments

The unexpected dry spell allowed us the chance to do some tidying up in the garden. It was sunny and there’s always something to see overhead, so I’m certainly not about to complain. The gulls are a good alarm system when I’m gardening. I don’t actually have to watch the sky, just keep an ear open for sudden silences (always worth checking out), or a near exponential increase in squawking. Both say: Raptor Alert!

Here’s the first visitor of the day, a rather fine looking buzzard that flew over late morning.

Common buzzard

I missed a sparrowhawk soon after that one, but they tend to come back and I was able to get this photo a little later in the day.

Sparrowhawk

As well as gulls and birds of prey, it can be worth watching the corvids. Jackdaws chatter overhead; and the crows have their own noisy way of making their presence known, especially if they’re not happy. I spotted a small group crows in fairly frantic flight. It appeared that they were chasing an unwelcome crow out of their territory. This is a short sequence of what happened when one of the local crows caught up with the interloper.

Two crows engaging in mid-air combat.

Two crows engaging in mid-air combat.

Two crows engaging in mid-air combat.

Two crows engaging in mid-air combat.

The shots were taken from some distance and are heavily cropped, but it was interesting to see them in mid-air combat. The birds separate in the final shot and I watched as the lead bird was chased away over the valley. The several other crows in attendance (but out of shot) circled back to nearby trees.

The final sequence is of a buzzard. It wasn’t being mobbed as such, but carefully escorted away from the area by a small squadron of herring gulls. They mainly kept their distance, but one would occasionally dart closer to remind the buzzard of their presence. The buzzard itself is interesting as it has lost a number of primary feathers. Its flight seemed unaffected, and the feathers will re-grow.

Common buzzard with missing primaries

Common buzzard with missing primaries

Common buzzard with missing primaries

Common buzzard with missing primaries

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

Also posted in Birds Tagged , , , |