Tag Archives: Buzzard

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.

Posted in Bird of Prey, Foxes, mange Also 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.

Posted in Bird of Prey, Birds Also tagged , , |

Three Foxes and a Badger (video)

February 22, 2014 by Words | 3 Comments

I’ll come to the video in a moment, but first some photos of one of the three buzzards that flew over the garden this morning. We do see them occasionally up here, but it’s a long time since I’ve seen three together (though only two feature in these photos, and I failed to get a group shot).

This is the first buzzard (which was closely followed by a second one). It flew across the rear of the garden, so I only had a few moments to get a photo.

Common buzzard

The third of the buzzards circled overhead for a while. These are two of the better photos. Both are hefty crops.

Common buzzard

Common buzzard

Now to the video. It’s a series of clips taken over the past two nights via the garden trail camera. The sequences include two clips of a badger, plus the three most regular fox visitors. Pretty you know (she’s by far the smaller of the group). There’s a large healthy male (Nicked Ear) who has been around for some time. The third fox has shown up up several times recently. He appears to have a mangey brush, though the rest of him doesn’t look too bad for now.

Finally, a photo of Pretty taken a couple of hours ago.

Fox on garden step

Camera note: all buzzard photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The fox was photographed with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens. Video via the Bushnell Trophy HD.

Posted in Badger, Behaviour, Bird of Prey, Foxes, mange Also tagged , , |