A Boxing Day Buzzard

Mum and Dad excelled with their Christmas card to me this year:

'Watching Waxwings' by Vanna Bartlett, Acrylic on Canvas.
Published via Green Pebble, www.greenpebble.co.uk

I love it. It seems they're now as equally obsessed with Waxwings as I am. Every time we've been out recently Mum asks if I think we'll see any...maybe we'll be lucky I say. We didn't see any today on a hopelessly muddy and, in the end, aborted walk across Allhallows marshes. We did see a Buzzard though, from the car on the way back. "What's that over there?!" Dad said, pointing and gesturing at a field we were passing...I craned my neck, expecting a pheasant, but sure enough, there was a large buzzard sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of a bare, muddy field. It was probably only 20m away - I rarely ever see buzzards so close.

We pulled over nearby as it stood motionless in it's chosen puddle for a moment before flying off with a beat of its powerful wings. It cruised past us and into the distance where I was intrigued to see it start hovering with surprising ease. I've never seen a buzzard carry this off so well before and I thought back to the two Rough-legged buzzards I was spoilt with in the same area last year. I wondered, out loud...but although I couldn't find my bins in the mess of coats and rucksacks strewn throughout the car, this was not one I was sure. There was little hint of a pale rump or notable flexing or colouration of the carpal joints, it was instead, our own, a Common Buzzard - that judging by the horde of gulls that took its precise place in the field, had probably been feeding on earthworms when we saw it. I guess it's funny to think of a majestic 'bird of prey' splashing around in puddles, behaving like a Blackbird, but then food is food.

I took a useless picture through the windscreen as it passed us...not a Waxwing but a handsome bird nonetheless.