Beautiful Buzzards find our sanctuary

Do birds know when they are safe?   We hope so and that this pair of buzzards have come to live with us because they sense that it is a safe environment.  We haven’t had buzzards in our wildlife sanctuary before so this is a privilege and very exciting for us.  Are they a breeding pair and will they nest?   It looks promising.

Buzzards are large birds, measuring up to two feet in length and with a wingspan that sometimes goes over four feet.  Just before our photographer took this picture (which was on a rare sunny day last week) the birds were on the ground and close by so he saw how big they are first hand.  Where is the camera when you want it!

Buzzards mate for life and are territorial so it’s unlikely we’ll see any more in the area.  They have good habitat with us, plenty of trees and open spaces nearby where they can hunt for food.   Buzzards mainly eat small creatures, voles, mice and even snakes and lizards.   They are adaptable birds and will snack on worms and insects and take full advantage of any carrion.

The pair we have are typical in colour with feathers in shades of brown but they can, more rarely, be paler or even nearly black.  When you see more than two buzzards together it’s usually because they haven’t paired up yet.   They don’t form flocks as such but hunt independently.

The buzzard in the top of our picture is likely to be the male and he is performing a ritual mating display.  This is when he flies high up and then dive bombs doing some fancy twists and rolls as he goes.   This is to impress the female so it does look as though nest building will be next on the agenda.

We don’t see many buzzards in the wild any more so are they an endangered species?   We think almost all birds are in danger from humans but it’s believed there are around 40,000 buzzards in the U.K. at present.   Not enough.