Tag Archives: buzzard

Winter Safari

I love my cycle commute to school.  It provides a light workout as well as giving me time to de-tox from the rigours of taming teenagers.  And I have more time to observe the world around me.

As I cycled through Lower Hadspen last week, I saw two large birds rising from the road in front of me.  I immediately recognised one as a buzzard and was pleased to see the other was a red kite.  These angular birds of prey are still relatively new to Somerset, having spread their territory down from Wales and the Midlands. I remember the first time I saw one in the county; it was circling over a schools’ athletics meeting at Yeovil and I hoped the presence of this carrion-eating raptor did not reflect poorly on the prognosis for the exhausted teenagers competing on the track.

This kite rose with ease from what I discovered was a dead hare. I was sad to see a hare as roadkill, but I supposed its presence, albeit dead, was more evidence to show that hares seem to be on the increase in our area.  We saw hares nearer our home last summer. An adult hare deliberately ran at our labrador, before veering off to lead her away from what I assumed were her young in another part of the field.  Needless to say, Ella took the bait but returned – exhausted – soon after without any prey.

Beyond the dead hare, I cycled slowly past cider orchards, alive with hundreds of chuffling fieldfares and looping redwings and later at home, as I walked with the dogs, I listened to robins singing and blackbirds calling in the gathering gloom. We traversed fields as flocks of starlings skimmed across the treetops on their way to reedbed roosts on the Levels.

The sun was setting, its heat dissipating across the horizon in the frosty air and I caught a glimpse of something else red russet in the distance.  A large fox was trotting distractedly away from me across the field.  He looked unconcerned but stopped to look at me as I did likewise.  Lithe and healthy, he seemed to hinge at the hips as he gazed at me before moving along.  Some song lines came to mind:

“I was lookin’ back to see if you were lookin’ back at me
To see me lookin’ back at you”. 

The title – “Safe from Harm” – seemed apt as neither dog had the remotest clue of the fox nearby.  He was in no danger and the air of calm deepened still as my gaze followed him and I noticed two roe deer, also looking back at me.  They moved lightly across the field below us.  I laughed ironically and asked them if they were all paid up members of my cycling and walking safari. 

I put my two natural born killers on their leads and wandered up the lane for a cup of tea.

Help Wanted 2

A year ago I wrote about my gardening buddy Fudge.  This is an update on my “Home Help” as I now have two such assistants.

April is here and the baby bunnies are gamboling in the increasingly warm sunshine.

How do you get to the other side?
How do you get to the other side?

Although gambling would be a better description as, with two crazed dogs lurking in the garden, the young buns are looking out-gunned. The first morning of combat saw both dogs trying to burrow into the prickly Berberis at the end of the boomerang bed.  Ella, thick in the fur and thick in the head was able to go in deepest, flushing a rabbit out which passed Fudge heading rapidly in the opposite direction.  She didn’t see it, but both dogs headed off in hot pursuit.

A little while later I found Fudge, licking her lips, with the upper half of a half eaten rabbit nearby.

Dogs 1 Rabbits 0

There was more success on greenhouse cleaning day, when Ella triumphantly retrieved another slaughtered fledgling rabbit for us.  Pleased as punch, she was.  For convenience, Claire put the corpse high in the plum tree – out of reach of the dogs until such time as we could dispose of the body more conveniently, without Fudge and Ella following the scent out of the garden.

Later, Ella was looking concerned, growling and even raising a bark (which is unusual for

Out of harm's way
Out of harm’s way

her) as she came back to the house.  I took my nervous labrador down the garden, only to discover the rabbit had disappeared.  There was no doubt it WAS dead, but, well, you know, it being Easter and all, was there a chance that this rabbit had risen again?  With no sign of any stone being rolled away and with the only apparent witness to the miracle being a dumb labrador, we are left to surmise on possible explanations.  The best I could come up with – other than a new Lapine messiah or a rabbit zombie – was that Ella had been spooked by a bird of prey taking the rabbit from the cross.  Tree.  I think a buzzard rising from the plum tree would be enough to scare most puppies.

So, with fewer rabbits to chase, my intrepid / naughty dogs have turned to escapology, finding ways out of the garden.  Fudge is the leader of the escape committee: if she gets out, Ella is all too easily led astray.  So with Fudge tied up, Ella has no inclination to escape.  But Fudge is still able to do her Houdini impersonations even on the String of Shame, managing to make off around the corner and over the fence.  You will need to look at the gallery to understand – it’s more of a visual joke.

As a footnote, we will continue to tie Fudge up in the garden, although my mother-in-law

Back on the String of Shame
Back on the String of Shame

is of the opinion that Fudge should just be put down.  As Claire’s parents are currently involved in moving from their own nice two bedroom bungalow, with beautifully tended garden (which her dad adores) to a small rented property nearby with only a patch of grass, overlooked by close neighbours, the similarities with Fudge’s desire to wander are uncomfortably close.  The old bitch has a perfectly lovely house and garden to live in, but is causing angst and stress to the others in the house by always wanting to be somewhere else – not appreciating what she has and always looking at the grass on the other side of the fence.  Solution?  Have her put down.  Hmmmmm…

As she is more likely to stay in the garden, Ella is proving to be more of a companion than her partner.  Although she does still have one or two habits which will take some work ridding her of.  For a start, she has little idea of boundaries within the garden and rummages through flower beds as well as trampling vegetable patches.  Chicken wire is a minimal deterrent for her.  And secondly, like all Labradors, she has an “eat first, ask questions later” approach to anything remotely edible.  So the intestines of an adult rabbit she ate the other day were duly deposited all across the kitchen floor an hour later.

So, very companionable, but not a great deal of help still.