Two a penny

At one time finding a Buzzard in East Anglia was akin to finding the Koohinor; and I don’t mean the local Tandoori. It was a red letter day. Now … two a penny; just like Wales … where this photo was taken.

An old friend

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This morning was bright and sunny in north Norfolk. Big Cumulous clouds set against a blue sky at this time of year indicate thermals that are ideal for raptor migration. Sure enough a peep outside at around 10:30am saw a passage of Buzzards west; at their peak around 8 were circling above the garden.

Before the Red Arrows ripped up the sky for the Cromer carnival I settled down for a cuppa and watched the bird table and feeders. It paid dividends as a first time visitor to the garden; a Bullfinch, fed briefly; an oddly small bird. I fetched the camera to catch the moment but she had quickly moved on. A visitor that did show however was the Sparrow showing features of Italian Sparrow. Those regular readers of ‘Letter from Norfolk’ will know this contentious bird first turned up last year. He has returned briefly on two occasions this year, the 3^rd July and today. I guess he must have bred again locally somewhere. The sightings from last year have been submitted to the various Rarities Committees under the banner of ‘Italian Sparrow’. We’ll see what happens next.

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The Red Arrows also put on a good show with several passes directly over the garden.

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Well …They’re only Buzzards aren’t they.

I’d like to tell you a story. The story is about a gamekeeper called Colin Burne. Colin is 64 and lives on Winters Park in Penrith Cumbria. I’ve known some good gamekeepers in my time; custodians of the countryside they can be in sympathy with our wildlife. Occasionally they will need to dispatch Crows or the like that interfere with the raising of their pheasants; not a practise with which I sympathise but never the less the copses maintained by landowners for pheasant rearing that would otherwise be cleared for agriculture are good habitat for other wildlife. There are always good sides to situations when you look hard enough. Colin caught a couple of Buzzards in his crow trap and the law says he should have released them but he … I’ll tell you what … a picture paints a thousand words. Take a look at this video released by the RSPB this week.

If the link above doesn’t work in your browser try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULBW0H2uqZ8

Colin was given no more than a slap on the wrists and told not to do it again by the court judge.
To me Colin’s actions seem routine; as though he does this almost every day.
Unless we pull together for this country’s wildlife we will lose it. Nature in Britain is in trouble it needs protection by the courts giving heavy jail sentences’ to people that don’t respect it.