Buzzard

20 February 2014

Whitley

12 noon; Two crows mob a buzzard, keeping above it and swooping down. The buzzard never gets the upper hand. It flies off, still pursued by one of the crows. As it reaches the wood another buzzard flies towards them. That should even up the score.

There's a triangle of white on a hill-top pasture but from this distance I can't tell whether they are gulls or white pigeons. It's only when they fly, in the lazily floating way that gulls do, that I can tell for sure. Pigeons are more emphatic in their flight. No one keeps homing gulls, they'd drift around aimlessly instead of hurrying home.

I decide that it would be worth keeping my little 8x21 monocular in my art bag. It's not as comfortable to use as my binoculars but it would be better than nothing in situations like this and it would have resolved the shape of the individual birds in the flock.

9.00 a.m.; Eight crows have gathered in the tops of the two tall sycamores down the road. Are they considering them as a nest site?