One of the things that moving to a new place does, is open up the opportunity to become acquainted with the locals. Several times, since we arrived, we have had a group of two or sometimes three buzzards circling overhead. Buzzards like a wooded hilly area and we have a wooded hill right behind us – so they have obviously been keeping up with their obligations. Naturally, the natural world should keep up with natural history, or at the very least watch the wildlife programmes on television – so they know how to behave.
I confess I feel a strong affinity with these birds. They are not your High Fliers – no plummeting from great heights with the wind whistling past and your eyes hooded against its blast for them. No high speed chase with dazzling aerobatics. No, they prefer a much more relaxed lifestyle. Soaring and floating is their modus operandi. As a second choice they are inclined to opt for sitting, camouflaged as a patch of arboreal vegetation or the insulator on an electricity pylon – for both of which their dark coloured plumage is admirably suited. Like any good fisherman they are happy to sit for hours and if some small scurrying thing should pass within a short swoop – fine, otherwise they are content to wait absorbed in their happy daydream.
I might come back in my next life as a buzzard
