Close encounter of the Buzzard kind

Beautiful and mild day so took a drive to our local park;    as it turned out this was a good decision or we would have missed this Common Buzzard digging for a worm on the ground and then perching beautifully for us on a branch not far back from the drive.     I rolled my passenger window down, rested the camera on the door frame and clicked away   !!     Took over 300 photos of this obliging raptor so forgive me if I get carried away posting up   lol       not often I get within metres of such a magnificent bird of prey.

First view was when it was on the grass ..........

then it took off and landed opposite where we stopped the car perching on a branch

then the views just got better and better so we just breathed in the excitement, watching this beautiful animal.....

time for a quick manicure ..............

and then relieving itself ....................  you just know when they lift that tail higher and higher ....................

 that this is about to happen so take cover    lol

and I better end with these last two pics ...........  or I'll carry on forever showing you buzzard shots  lol

  • you are one lucky dab lovely photo s thanks for showing them tony m
  • Thanks Tony, just got lucky break yesterday.
  • Unknown said:
    Thanks all, we almost never ever drive in to our local park so it was a lucky break and worth the £7 parking fee ! Credit goes to Mike for spotting it as he drove through the park and the car did prove to be a good hide as Tony says. @ Hazel, I'm no expert but did think the same thing and thought this was a 1st year bird; not absolutely sure but think I read that juveniles don't have the end black tail-band - but will leave it to the experts to decide.
    I forgot that I took a few quick clips; even though I was resting on the car window it is a bit wobbly and not very professional as I wasn't able to "stablisise" in post edit via YTube. I also added music but it only went on the first clip so treat this video as record clips LOL

    post edit: seems the use rich formatting isn't working so you'll have to use this link:
    https://youtu.be/F0TDbLqE5oI

    Great video Hazy too. I was looking at the wing feather tips which seemed to be pale & pointed to juvenile, but I'm no expert either!

  • Hazy I too thought about the Buzzard I had visiting, that had so much white on it I thought it must be a youngster. It hasn't been around for a few months now, probably went inland for the winter or somewhere where the food was more abundant.
  • Amazing photos Hazel. I love Buzzards.