This blog post originally appeared on Peter's 'Fresh from the Field' blog on 21st September 2015.
Back on the 2nd of September I wrote a blog about how noisy the countryside can be sometimes, mentioning one particularly loud Buzzard youngster that has become known as 3B (bloody baby buzzard!)
Well, 3B is still around and looking in good condition, but the trouble is that he/she shows no sign of quitting the monotonous shrieking call, presumably asking to be fed. The problem is that, not once in the last month have I seen a parent show any attention to the youngster at all, so I think that 3B now sees me as the best bet for a potential scoff - after all, the "other" animals around the house seem to be fed on a regular basis!
As a consequence, every time I go into the garden, 3B arrives and sits in one of the surrounding trees and watches me intently, all the time yelling at me to be given a square meal!
I imagine (and hope) that it will not be long before 3B gets kicked out of the area by other Buzzards, to find his/her own territory. My only worry is that all the other local Buzzards have also become so fed up with the constant begging, that they have cleared off, leaving 3B behind to continue this agonizing background noise for many a month to come!
On another note, you might notice in the photo that 3B is sitting in an Ash tree which is laden with "keys" - the name given to an Ash tree's seed. Lets hope that this abundance of keys is a response to the arrival of "Ash die-back disease" in the area, and some of this seed will produce saplings that are immune, so that this common tree still has a role to play in our future landscape.
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