Suburban Raptors - Longford Buzzard Flight Shots

As I 'walkied' the dog past the canal side perch I heard the unmistakable plaintive mewing of buzzards somewhere over in the field. They were not in the usual oak and their calls seemed to be coming from the motorway so I'm surprised I could hear them with all that racket going on.

I decided to get the camera set up early on full zoom and went round the back of the hedgerow to investigate hoping to catch a few snaps. I spooked the bird out of one perch in the M6 embankment trees and it flew off to another at a safer distance. I got a shot but you'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it to be able to spot it ...

Then it flew off and came my way but I missed a flight shot by seconds so ran back through the hedgerow and just caught the bird on the other side as it soared into the clear sky above the trees...

Then I noticed its mate soaring a good thousand feet up, too far really to see it as anything more than a dot through the lens even with additional Photoshop zooming, however I kept snapping away and got a good enough unblurred soaring shot of the first bird...

And then a better one still as the bird came directly overhead. They both then flew off into the wind toward the second perch over by the Ricoh where they are, no doubt, as I type these words...

Should Have Gone Back To Iceland...

This pair of whooper swans have been on Wyken Slough all Summer long. Perhaps they have turned resident as they should have buggered back to whence they came by springtime. I wonder if they have decided to stay and even nest here next year? That'd be interesting as there's only a handful of these birds that have decided to do so and they are up in the North of England I believe.

They are pretty large birds and quiet with it. The lakes huge population (for its size) of mute swans keep well away from them up in the northern part of the lake and the southern end is their sole territory. They never venture far from the footbridge and can be seen thereabouts every day with the mallards milling about them.

I have a body feather that must be from one of them as all the mute swan feathers that have parted company with the bird have blown into the margins at the other end. Hard to tell though...

Both birds are ringed I have noticed. It's great to see them so close up too as they are supposed to be wary of getting too near to us and most observations are made through binoculars. You could probably have these pair eat out of your hand

The Water Birds of Blenheim Palace Lake

We had a days fishing out on a punt on Blenheim Palace Lake and saw plenty of water loving birds there on our perambulations around in search of some very hard to find fish. A large contingent of resident cormorants was a spooky sight having all but stripped their chosen perch clean of leaf and twig.

There were plenty of them seen at range, perhaps fifty or more but they scare easily and when we got within shooting distance many had fled and by the time we were under the tree most were gone  leaving just the more ballsy individuals to eye us warily as we passed them by...

This single black swan was a highlight. An aggresive cob who strutted by feathers fluffed up in display giving out his weird singing warning and telling us interlopers in boats in no uncertain terms that this was his territory and beware!

There were no other swans of any species on the lake and I don't remember much in the way of ducks either, but then again the mind just ignores mallards as part of all watery scenery in britain. There were moorhens of course, no coots and quite a few herons - a much larger population than I'd have thought though I don't know if they nest in the area.

We witnessed a fast flying kingfisher buzz across the whole width of the lake in what seemed like just a few seconds but by far the most entertaining birds seen were the great crested grebes who were working ceaselessly to feed their young. Efficient anglers they are catching one after the other tiny perch and hardly ever coming up from a dive empty beaked.

As night fell a vast flock of large gulls flew in from the north and occupied at least an acre of water just under the cormorant roost. It was many hundreds strong if not the full thousand. When we eventually sculled back to the boathouse they all as one flew up into the sky and disappeared, presumably to return once the coast was all clear. They had been far too far away to identify unfortunately but whatever they were they were certainly not uncommon!

A Heron Fishing at Lucy's Mill

I was fishing for roach a few days ago at Lucy's Mill in Stratford-upon-Avon enjoying myself catching a few redfins and generally enjoying the day when this heron, the first I have even seen this far into town despite having fished here many, many times over he last few years, flew out of the wood on the island and took up position on the mill wall by the second weir...



...It stood awhile upright and dead still, then bent down when it spied a fish...

 ...seconds later it dropped into the water like a kingfisher and pounced upon its hapless prey...

 ...but so far as I could see at that distance - it was a good seventy yards away - missed its target.

Ah well, you can't win them all!

Luckily my camera, though not equipped with a lens that can actually make pictures in-camera like the ones above does a good enough job on full zoom for me to be able to zoom in much further in Photoshop than I would have thought and make a fist of a reasonable distance shot.

Lucky also that I kept shooting through the whole action and got the exit shot but the downside with compact digitals with any subject that moves suddenly and quickly is that the slow refresh rate for the cameras electronics meant that I missed the bird actually hitting the water which would have been a prize shot indeed.

Suburban Raptors - More from the Longford Buzzards

There's a home turf walk that I take Molly out on occasionally - she loves it as it takes us into open farmland which is natural spaniel territory, the very environment they were bred for. However this is farmland on the very edge of town - turn to the North or East and you're firmly set in the twenty first century landscape of the Ricoh Arena, the Gallagher Business park and the M6/Pheonix Way interchange with all its associated hurry but turn toward the Church of St Giles Exhall in the West and if it weren't for the relentless grind and rumble of gears and wheels you could fall effortless into the timeless landscape of the English Middle Ages.

I wanted to see if the local buzzards were using this tract of land as I had ideas that their territory would include it. I walked along the edges of some arable land and entered a horse pasture and there found the first feather fluttering below the scrubby bushes at the edge of the field, a tail feather that looked as if it might well be from the very same bird using the Hawkesbury oak as a perch as it seemed to match the ones found under that ancient tree.


Primary found under the oak

At the end of the meadow there was a large old oak and beneath it I found a finger primary too though ascertaining whether or not it once belonged to any particular bird would be impossible as the wing feathers seem to be quite indistinguishable from each other except perhaps in size which would denote either male or female, the female being a little larger on the whole.


A stark old stump

As we crossed into the next meadow I heard the unmistakable mewing of a buzzard some way to the North and went over to investigate. I saw the bird perched high in another oak and then the partner flew  past just twenty yards away heading for another oak on the opposite side of the field. I just caught a picture of the first bird before it flew off the perch to join its mate, the first half-decent picture I have managed to obtain of a Longford Buzzard.


One of the pair at distance

We walked around this set of meadows for an hour or more until I came across the next set of feathers, three secondaries and all within yards of each other, one out in the field a little and two by the hedge, as usual. Just around the corner from these I then came across a spot around a fallen hawthorn where there were numerous feathers including a couple more primaries.


Buzzard secondary in amongst the horse dung


By the time we'd completed a first search of most of the field edges available I had nine feathers in my hand including a second tail feather from a different bird than the first found earlier in the session. We then crossed over into the arable fields to see what we could see.

The stench of death halted us at a certain point and the source was soon found dead in the hedgerow, a fox who'd been there a little while and fast decaying ~


Fox's end...

A little further along I came across the remains of a meal. This was a grey wagtail and had been reduced to a spread of feathers without any trace of bones - I'd guess the bird was pulled apart by either a buzzard or more likely the sparrowhawk I saw fly past just a little later in the day. It couldn't have been a fox who would have certainly eaten such a tiny bird fluff, feathers and all.


Feast site - the remains of a grey wagtail

As we completed a circuit of the field edges of the arable land without anything else to show for it I finally came across more buzzard feathers and all within 100 yards of each other and as usual all in the field edge and ditch area. The first was a primary covert and the second yet another finger primary...


Another primary at the edge of an arable field


I took a picture of the days haul and then found a third tail feather, the match for the second bird tail found earlier. I also realised then that I'd managed to drop a secondary somewhere out in the fields and we went back to find it. We never did...


The haul minus the lost secondary and a tail yet to come

So, a total of twelve of the larger feathers found in a couple of hours and a few breast and flank. I'd suppose many of them had been out in the field for some time for there to be so many around to find. I don't expect the second trip in a week or so to produce nearly as much material for study.

One of the many wood pigeon meals seen out in the arable fields

As you might expect there were numerous feast sites of the ubiquitous wood pigeon dotted here and there and especially in the arable fields. The work of the Longford Buzzards perhaps?