lightning strikes twice.....

[vulcanrog]

I'm fascinated by them, Lords of the air they I are once saw a sparrow hawk hit a pidgeon in mid air, more like heard it ! Looked up & it was coming down with the pidgeon already dead.

A cautionary tale of dealing with buzzards ! when I first got back to biking I had a GPZ1100, I was en route to mothers via a lane kind of covered over by trees, THWACK ! on the left side fairing, It was a young buzzard that hit me.
I stopped went back to it --DEAD ! I thought NAH the buggers feign death when grounded, I went round behind & it moved, I folded its wings & picked it up luckily from behind cos this bugger woke up & wasn't happy ! A lady stopped in a car & asked "can I help ?" "switch my bike off please" sez I. She duly did so & was all hyper about seeing a buzzard up close, Damn thing's trying to take my face off & she's trying to stroke it ! I got her to get my phone out to call my daughter who worked at that time for the RSPCA, She told me to check it's wings etc which I did & all seemed ok. In doing this it ended up tucked under my right arm "release it" sez daughter, So I sez to this lady "help me release it in that field open the gate please" She did, All the time buzzing round me really exited which wound the bird up a treat & it continued trying to take my face off !

To release the thing I needed to move it from under my arm & hold it out at arms length & simply let go, Here's the painfull bit ! It grabbed my left index finger in its left talons, I still had gloves on & I tried to wriggle free, with each wriggle it tightened its grip ! Mrs woman is jumping up & down with glee cos its fooking parents turned up & they weren't happy either & proceeded to dive bomb me ! I got my hand free but it had my glove I was happy to still have my face & fingers so I let go & all 3 birds flew off making a hell of a din, My glove was released at about 30ft & I had a 500 yd trog to get it back, When I got back to the gate Mrs woman was gone ! bike was scratched.

moral of the story ? Don't fuck with a buzzard !

[Bikerchickett]

Ouch !!!!!!

[S1OPP]

We get loads of Buzzards round here.

An warm evening they all soar about making a racket, counted up to 17 at one time.

They look like vultures circling.

[vulcanrog]

on a naval air base we have a breeding pair of buzzards in a wood near one of our gates, About this time of year they'll have a youngster they lost last years, It flew into the razor wire severing a wing my daughter came out to put it to sleep, Such a fine bird too. They do this kind of tumbling act now & then, sort of re establishing the bond they get right up high & you'd think they were going to hit the ground but they soar back up & repeat it, Real nice to watch on a quiet day.