Just a quick one tonight.
Jack took these two photos of a buzzard just outside our garden yesterday, they normally hang about in a tree a bit further away from us. I wonder if they’ll ever actually pay our garden a visit.
They’re not exactly rare in fact there seem to be loads of them constantly calling to each other here as they wheel around, but I never get blase about seeing them. We were just amazed that the tree branch didn’t show any sign of bending as these birds must be quite a weight.
Tomorrow’s post will be more recent book purchases – I know, it’s an illness!
Looks like it’s selected a fairly stout leader/branch of that tree – I can’t quite tell, is it a cherry tree?
I suppose trial and error has shown the birds what they can land on without it collapsing and making them look silly!
They seem to weigh anything from about a pound or so to nearly 3 pounds – light for their size.
Spring’s coming for you, to judge from those swelling buds.
Valerie,
I think it is some sort of Prunus but not cherry possibly almond, it always blooms long before the cherry trees. We had snow on Saturday so fingers crossed that that was the last fall as everything is beginning to grow, I hope they don’t get blasted by frost.
I never tire of the buzzards here either. Like you, we have many and they rest on the boundaries of the garden but have never done so inside the boundaries. Sparrowhawks, on the other hand, have sat on the balcony railings – literally 3 feet from where we stood (albeit behind glass).
Sandra,
We had sparrowhawks in our old garden. They used the path as a dining table – gruesome! But I’ve not seen any around this area.
They look quite stately. Overlords of their domaine!
Joan,
They are stately, especially in flight.
Katrina,
That bird of prey is so interesting!
In the West, in the U.S., a buzzard is actually a vulture.
We have vultures in the East and we call them turkey vultures.
They became scarce during the era of DDT, but are now quite numerous. They high-tail it out of here in the late fall and come again in spring.
Your buzzard has a much bigger head in proportion to his body than our turkey vultures. I will have to look him/them up!
Judith,
We don’t have turkey buzzards here, we don’t have vultures. It can be difficult to distinguish between buzzards, hawks, kestrels and such but I’m pretty sure these are buzzards and they’re here all year round.