Nature Notes
Nature Notes 1: Two
Buzzards
From our front door, we watched two buzzards spiralling over the Stour
Valley. A hooting jackdaw mobbed one, tiny by comparison. But the
buzzards seemed to pay no attention whatsoever. As they all became
small, the jackdaw gave up and laboured away to the south. Suffolk and
Essex now have both buzzards and red kites as regulars, breeding too. A
welcome alternative to the proposed reintroduction of sea-eagles that
was cancelled by the new Agriculture Minister and pig-farmer. The reason
- fear that these great birds would fly off with a piglet (the clue is
in the name of the bird). But with delicious irony, the sea eagles may
come themselves: a pair from Germany stayed 6 months last year in the
Blythe Valley; another has been up at Corton this spring. They are
breeding in the Netherlands, and overwintering in northern France. James
Wentworth-Day wrote of seeing sea eagles over Geedon Marshes in northern
Essex in the 1930s. Perhaps they will come more, and stay.
