Not many words on the Blog today. I have a couple of things to report though. It didn't take long to entice the Buzzard down to the gate post this morning. It was interesting to see how wary it was, I had accidentally included a leaf or two with the chick and it was really surprising to see how scared it was to land. Buzzards are so so wary. It plucked up the courage in the end and then flew off with the chick as normal, however it's behaviour did give me the chance to get a photo from a different perspective. A magnificent spectacle, a bird with a massive wingspan of almost 5 feet. When you see them flying over they are usually much further away or higher in the sky than you realise so they seem smaller than they actually are. I need to work out a way of getting some better photographs while I have the opportunity. The Jay was performing and just before he landed in front of me this morning I heard a distant Buzzard, I guessed it was the Jay and listened really hard to try to see if I could discern any difference but frankly I couldn't tell. Then when he landed just feet away I heard him make a perfect Carrion Crow Call. I whistled the little phrase that I am trying to teach him and he immediately flew off with an alarm call which was the proper Jay job! Seconds later he ws back and I carried on with the whistling, I wonder how long its goingto take hime to repeat it? At one point I watched him as he perched in a tree a bit further away and there was a a "round" of intense alarmm calls from the Tits waiting by the feeder. The Jay reacted to these calls by ercecting his crest, screaming an alarm himself and flying away strongly. I never did find out what had caused the alarm but it was a learning curve to know that the Jay reacted to the alarm call from the Tits. Of real interest was the arrival of both Long-tail Tits and even more interestingly a small group of Redwings, neither staying to feed though. I wish I could say the same for the Squirrels, three were there for most of the morning session, very annoyingly they ignored when I tried to move them on.
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December 10, 2012
Buzzards at my hide.
Not many words on the Blog today. I have a couple of things to report though. It didn't take long to entice the Buzzard down to the gate post this morning. It was interesting to see how wary it was, I had accidentally included a leaf or two with the chick and it was really surprising to see how scared it was to land. Buzzards are so so wary. It plucked up the courage in the end and then flew off with the chick as normal, however it's behaviour did give me the chance to get a photo from a different perspective. A magnificent spectacle, a bird with a massive wingspan of almost 5 feet. When you see them flying over they are usually much further away or higher in the sky than you realise so they seem smaller than they actually are. I need to work out a way of getting some better photographs while I have the opportunity. The Jay was performing and just before he landed in front of me this morning I heard a distant Buzzard, I guessed it was the Jay and listened really hard to try to see if I could discern any difference but frankly I couldn't tell. Then when he landed just feet away I heard him make a perfect Carrion Crow Call. I whistled the little phrase that I am trying to teach him and he immediately flew off with an alarm call which was the proper Jay job! Seconds later he ws back and I carried on with the whistling, I wonder how long its goingto take hime to repeat it? At one point I watched him as he perched in a tree a bit further away and there was a a "round" of intense alarmm calls from the Tits waiting by the feeder. The Jay reacted to these calls by ercecting his crest, screaming an alarm himself and flying away strongly. I never did find out what had caused the alarm but it was a learning curve to know that the Jay reacted to the alarm call from the Tits. Of real interest was the arrival of both Long-tail Tits and even more interestingly a small group of Redwings, neither staying to feed though. I wish I could say the same for the Squirrels, three were there for most of the morning session, very annoyingly they ignored when I tried to move them on.
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