Honey Buzzard and Badgers

Last night I went out to keep a vigil on the main badger sett that I have been watching. I was not even sure if the badgers had returned since the flooding, therefore I was more than ready for a night with no sightings. However, I had the joy of hearing both the calling of a pair of Tawny owls to keep me company. I could hear rather than see activity but it was not clear what was abroad. There are rabbits there as well as foxes, but the way that the rain and the flooding have changed the undergrowth has dulled to contrast thus my image is a little less distinct. While I did have the IR camera with me, but I did not want to waste the batteries. Also, no matter how careful I try to be, the camera does make some soft noise when operated, thus I prefer to save its use for when it is most likely to be useful.

I sat there and while there was some movement around I just could not tell if the badgers were there. As the pre dawn light began to grow I spotted three of the badgers, they were to far away to film as the IR Light doesn't have the range, but the black and white of their faces told me they were back. I waited until they were underground and settled till I moved. It is not dignified getting out of a tree when your cold and when your legs are getting numb. So my half jump half fall disturbed a barn owl who screeched and hissed at me, then it dived towards me. Thinking it was going to strike me, I ducked covering my face with my hands. The late great Eric Hoskins lost an eye to such an incident, therefore I have always been careful. But the bird was just after a mouse or vole that I had disturbed.

As I started to move off I heard the call of the old boy who also watches the badgers. Even though he uses night vision equipment, he had not known I was there. As we walked home, he lives in my street, we chatted about the badgers. He had seen five of them so that is really good news. He told me that he thought that I was being attacked by the Owl, apparently it had been just two or three feet above me in the tree, and it looked to him that it was the owl that had driven me from the tree.

When we got home I invited him in for a cup of tea. As he is eighty he was feeling the cold much more than me and I could see he needed to get warmed up. As he stepped through the door I saw something just by his foot and I told him to just stay still. I bent down to look and it was a spider. Now my carpets are a dark brown, and he asked how on earth did I spot that. I got the spider into a collecting tube. I latter identified it as Liocranum rupicola. I will latter post the film I took of it, but it is brief as it was rather fast on its legs. But if I had eight legs I am sure I could run as fast.

We talked about the badgers and wildlife in general and I told him that recently I had seen an Osprey and that I had seen a Buzzard, but it looked different to a Common Buzzard. He suggested that what I saw was a Honey Buzzard. We looked up in my field guides along with my notes and it looks as though that was what it was. However, the bird was in the wrong location. He told me that he had heard that there were reports that the weather had misplaced some Scandinavian birds, so it was possible I had seen one of these birds.

We had a good chat and he told me that he wanted to introduce me to the police officer that deals with wildlife crime. There is only one for the whole force. Then he told me that the other local police force, we live right on the boarder of two counties, had screwed up and possibly alienated a wildlife watcher. The police have to rely on the support of wildlife watchers to keep them informed of wrong doing. Well I told him all the details and he realised I had been that wildlife watcher.

That amused him but he was also annoyed that the event had occurred. As his own experience shows the police will often fail to act when people are obviously poaching or disturbing badgers. Thus me being stopped from trying to watch wildlife was unacceptable. We parted agreeing on that, I hope it doesn't happen again. I have no problem with the police asking me questions, but as the police only have powers if they have a genuine suspicion that an offence, then I think I will be a bit obstinate if anything similar happens again.

Anyway this posting is not a moan, and latter I settled down to hear the BBC World on the Move on the radio. There was a report that over the last ten days or so there had been three hundred sightings of Honey Buzzards. Therefore it was likely that I had seen one of the birds from Scandinavia that was on migration. As I still have some uncertainty about the identification I will not be adding it to my life list, but I may go and see if I can see this beautiful bird next year.