It’s that time of the year again when buzzards gather together in the fields. They seem to choose a different field every year. Last year it was one adjoining the back lane to Upton, the year before that they were over at Colestocks and this year they are in the field leading along the lane to the pig farms.
I have enjoyed photographing them mixed in amongst all those herring gulls and pigeons. Silhouetted along the edge of the ridge they appear huge and once again there is a very white individual amongst them. At first glance it is very easy to think that it is something else – perhaps a herring gull or even more exciting a hen harrier, but no it is just a juvenile common buzzard. I say just but I still love to see them, especially when they come closer to the lane. There are now so many around us it is hard to accept that they were extinct in most areas in the UK until the late 1980s.
Our bird feeders have really not been that busy yet. We tend not to feed the birds during the summer months and this mild but really wet autumn has meant that there is still plenty of food about. The tit families have so far been getting it all their own way, as very few goldfinches have found us again, but doubtless they will in time and add us to their daily itinerary.
Our local owls seem to have had a good year and although I have yet to actually see them, I hear the little and tawny owls calling a lot in the garden and around the village. They are far more likely to be heard than seen, although some folk have been hugely privileged to see them perched up during the day. I hear them a lot when I check my moth trap before going to bed, often very close indeed, but still no photographs! There have also been several sightings of barn owls quartering some of the fields in search of voles and mice. It has been so wet that they may well have had a difficult time of things recently.
Fieldfares have started to arrive from Scandinavia but there have been no reports yet of any redwings. It has been a marvellous autumn for berries but those pigeons are extra busy scoffing the lot and so if the thrushes want any they had best be quick! News is coming in of a massive winter influx of waxwings, countless hundreds of them, all in search of berries. Some have ventured as far south as Cornwall but I have yet to see any – I live in hope.
Paul 841696