Often I hear the evocative calls of a pair of common buzzards circling over my house. For a recording from the RSPB website listen hereAudio player: CommonBuzzard13March2009LheebroekerzandHolland.mp3
When I was growing up in the East of England in the mid 20th century these birds were never seen. Killing to protect game birds had drastically the numbers of what was once a common bird. After illegal killing ceased numbers recovered but then two catastrophes
set the resurgence back. Now the bird has recovered from these disasters and is common again, in every part of the UK. it's now our commonest bird of prey.
Common Buzzards
Photo: Ralph Gebhardt https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buteo_buteo_060716_800v1.jpg
Often I hear the evocative calls of a pair of common buzzards circling over my house. For a recording from the RSPB website listen hereAudio player: CommonBuzzard13March2009LheebroekerzandHolland.mp3
When I was growing up in the East of England in the mid 20th century these birds were never seen. Killing to protect game birds had drastically the numbers of what was once a common bird. After illegal killing ceased numbers recovered but then two catastrophes set the resurgence back. Now the bird has recovered from these disasters and is common again, in every part of the UK. it's now our commonest bird of prey.
I've tried to capture the information from https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/buzzard/ as a kind of time plot. It's just a sketch, the height of the graph is not accurate but just my attempt to make the story on the RSPB website graphical.