Saw eight buzzards wheeling and soaring over my garden for a good five minutes today - never seen so many at one go. Anyone know reasons why there would have been so many at one time?
hi nightingale they could of been feeding
Hello Nightingale - we have lived around Buzzards and their nesting sites for the past 20 years and often see groups soaring together (10 is our max) sometimes they soar in layers (like aircraft coming into land) and you don't always spot them all! The last few weeks here they have been soaring and hunting in a larger group and I wonder if they are young ones with parents or just the young all flying together - they saw a Red Kite off a couple of weeks ago. One year we were able to watch the young taking their first flight which was fantastic.
Buzzards can be found in a variety of habitats in the UK, and are now rapidly returning to natural and historical numbers of equilibrium. The historical declines can be attributed to years of persecution by man, loss of food through the widespread outbreaks of myxomatosis in rabbits and organochlorine pesticide contamination during the 50s and 60s.
Buzzards also (thankfully) continue to return to eastern lowland counties where they were lost altogether over 150 years ago now - mainly as a result of persecution by man through fear of the effects of predation on managed game populations. They are at present distributed across all parts of the British Isles except for Southern Ireland, parts of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man.
They tend to be a solitary birds that normally only associate with their mate, although sizeable gatherings can sometimes be seen on thermals and at carrion or good feeding area's.
L