I’ve mentioned before that a buzzard used to visit our garden when we lived in Poole and was rather partial to smokey bacon.
We’d first seen him sitting on the lamppost in the main road that ran at the bottom of our garden . Our estate was higher than the road, which used to be the old railway line and was now the main HGV route to Poole Port.
Some weeks later, I threw some fatty bacon out onto the garage roof when I saw him and was surprised that he came for it.
We called him Claude when he became a regular visitor, and at one stage flew over our house to sit on the wall opposite the kitchen as if to say ‘Where’s my breakfast!’
I haven’t got photos of that, nor the time when we were sitting on the wall feeding him scraps and he was just a few feet away. Once he was even sitting on our gate post.
We always knew him in flight as he had a notch in his wing.
He stopped coming so close though and we think that a neighbour frightened him away. We always appreciated he was wild, but it was so lovely to see this magnificent bird of prey close up. He stayed in the area though, adopting his original perch on the lamppost.
My pictures don’t do him justice.
How wonderful Di. We used to see lots of buzzards over Laughton Forest. Once, we saw one jyst sitting on a post in front of us. I absolutely LOVE raptors. Have you ever seen an osprey Di? I will tell you a story one day about Lady the osprey. How wonderful that you had that experience with Clayde. Love the name 😊
Only in captivity and we saw eagles at the bird sanctuary. They were amazing!
We have kestrels here, and have seen buzzards riding the thermals in the distance, but nothing as close as Claude.
It’s amazing isn’t it
Very humbling.
Yes
Will show my son these when he wakes up. These are lovely. Must have been such a buzz.
It was Gary. We were really lucky that he trusted us that much to get so close, even if it was bribery!
Your Claud looks fierce.
He was beautiful.
The birds of the wild are majestic.
Can’t believe I missed this, Di! What a wonderful encounter! He looks a rather proud buzzard too.
He was gorgeous and at one stage we were close enough to touch him and him brave enough to think about taking food directly from our hand.
We are convinced someone frightened him off, but he still sat on the lampost in the road behind us (you can just see it in the garage roof shots)
It is lovely when you can build that kind of trust with a wild creature.
We felt privileged
I can imagine. I would too.
🙂
Claude is magnificent – and Big! 😀
Beautiful markings, and we almost got within touching distance once.