![]() ![]() As a naturalist once said 'if you're in two minds as to whether it's a buzzard or an eagle, then it's a buzzard.' You just know when you've seen an eagle. There's no mistaking this bird, down to its sheer size. A good way to spot buzzards is to listen for their distinctive and iconic 'mew' call. Their primary wing feathers also give the appearance of long fingers. Whilst mainly brown, they have light patches on the underside of their wings, which can help to distinguish them from ravens or large crows at a glance. Once spotted, they will often fold their wings to fly incredibly quickly to the ground. Watch them as they soar high in the sky, often in groups of two or three, using their incredible eyesight to look for a meal on the ground. This allows them to use thermal columns to gain height with minimal effort. Notice how their tails are wedge shaped, and their wings are long and broad. Over the past 20 years they have bounced back from being critically endangered, and can now be seen all over the UK in towns and cities and mountainsides alike. They will hunt small mammals like rabbits, and are even perfectly happy eating earthworms. This is known as mantling.īuzzards are mainly scavengers and will readily eat carrion. They'll often eat their prey where they catch them, and will cover up their quarry with their wings to protect it from other predators. Look for them in gardens and woodland, ambushing songbirds by flying low over hedges and bushes at speed. Females are about the size of a wood pigeon, and are grey and white in colour, with black bars down their breasts. They have a red-ish breast, with white bars, and a slate grey back. Males are known as muskets, and are about the size of a thrush, if not slightly bigger. Their tails are long and squared at the ends, giving them the skill and agility to manouvre tight corners. Sparrowhawks have short, blunted wings with their primary feathers creating 'fingers.' These short wings allow them to fly between trees and small spaces at speed. The females are much bigger than males, which effectively creates two different hunters in their area. Sparrowhawks are adapted to hunting in woodland, taking birds from blue tits to pigeons and everything in between. After sucessful conservation efforts, these birds are thriving now, and there could be as many as 40,000 pairs breeding in Britain. The causes of change are unclear and no conservation recommendations related to this species have been proposed.Sparrowhawks were almost extinct in the UK after centuries of persecution and pesticides which caused their eggs to break before they could hatch. The trend for Hobby in the UK is stable or increasing, hence no specific conservation actions are currently required for this species. The small annual samples of nest record cards indicate no long-term change in nest success. The increases and northward range expansion since the 1970s are perhaps linked to increases in its dragonfly prey supplies ( Prince & Clarke 1993) and to a decreasing dependency on its traditional heathland habitat, but the reasons underlying the increase are still only speculative ( Clements 2001).Ī success rate of more than 90% was recorded for nests in Derbyshire during 1992-2001, with successful nests fledging a mean of 2.44 young ( Messenger & Roome 2007). The causes of change are unclear, although changes in prey availability and a decreasing dependency on its traditional heathland habitat have been suggested as speculative reasons for the increases. ![]() The species is now widespread north to Lancashire and Co Durham ( Balmer et al. The Hobby's distribution has spread markedly northwards in England since the 1970s ( Gibbons et al. However, this is a tentative estimate, which needs to be confirmed with a full survey. ( 2016) looked at breeding densities from recent survey work in several areas, and concluded that the lower limit to the UK population estimate was 3,000 to 3,500 pairs, with perhaps as many as 5,000 pairs breeding. Numbers in parts of southeast England could be considerably higher than previously recognised ( Clements & Everett 2012). RBBP guidelines for recording this species are here. The Rare Breeding Birds Panel collects annual data on nesting pairs, which under-represent the true population to an unknown degree, but adequately establish the long-term upward trend ( eg Holling & RBBP 2014). To establish whether nesting occurs in a locality, dedicated observers and specialised field methods are required, as described by Hardey et al. ![]() Many BBS sightings, however, are likely to refer to migrants, first-summer non-breeders, or to breeding birds from distant nests. This species used to be too rare and unobtrusive for wide-scale monitoring but, following population increase, BBS is now able to produce a trend. ![]()
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