I broke my camera for this, but it was totally worth it.
The subject of today’s photo excursion in the mighty Buzzard. Now over at some land that Tim and his family (let’s be real, his Mum) owns, there have been some buzzards nesting on and off there, over the last few years. In 2023 the forest was felled due to a tree disease, but the buzzards are back, and today we are going to try and photograph them.
So I set off on the slog up the hill with Skylar in tow, now this might to be my best decision to bring her along, however 1) she needed a walk and 2) she used to come here and photograph the mountain bikes with me so is used to staying in one spot for 40 minutes at a time.
Whilst we make our way up the hill, it is pretty quiet on the ol’ buzzard front, I can see one high up off in the distant, but the whole place seems a bit quiet. There are usually at least a couple of Red Kites around, but not today! It is seemingly only me and Skylar.
After getting to a lookout spot about halfway up the hill I stop to have a look though my binoculars, I was up here yesterday doing some filming with Tim’s brother, and we saw one perched on a tree stump near the woods in the little valley. I was hoping to see the nest site, saw nothing… Then DISASTER happened! I was filming my Insta360 X3 camera and it, unexpectedly, took a dive and the tripod fell over onto the gravel path! Not ideal! I ended up scratching one of the lenses pretty badly which, unfortunately, renders the camera useless as you can see the scratch in the video 😢. Thankfully, I did purchase the extra care package when I brought the camera back in January, so I can send if odd to get fixed or replaced for free (well, I have to pay to send it).
The damage 😭
Once I got over myself and my stupidity for damaging my camera, I chose to carry on my expedition to find the buzzards. I walked closer to the wooded area to see if I could spy the nest. Whilst doing a piece to camera, I spotted a Hare creeping under a fallen tree, typical! So I headed down towards where I had seen it, in the hopes it hadn’t gone too far.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see much here, there was one little bird, which I think (after lots and lots of googleing) is a wood warbler which was lovely to see. I did try and get deeper into the woods, but this area is very overgrown and boggy, and with Skylar in tow, it was hard going, so I went back up to the track above.
After strolling down here and still not seeing any sign of the buzzards, I followed the track into the bottom of this wooded valley, where quite literally, as soon as I was down the hill and in the woods, I heard the unmistakable call of a buzzard! I was then treated to the sight of if flying down the felled side of the valley and along one of the access roads. It stopped in a tree nearby, and I managed to get an ‘OK’ shot of it.
It was not there for long and looked to be flying up from where I had just been! I figured it would be disturbed if I headed back out of the woods, so carried on down a little way, where I was surprised to see a nest! Now, I am not 100% sure if this is in fact the buzzard nest I was after, or if it is even a buzzard nest at all. It is quite sizeable, but it could also be a squirrel dray.
Hearing the buzzard moving around close (I think, I couldn’t actually see) I headed out towards the edge of the valley, in the hopes it may fly down though here again. Then the waiting started, it seemed like an absolute age went past, and I had pretty much given up all hopes of seeing it when, as I was about to leave, it appeared across the valley from me and perched on a fence post! Honestly, the timing was amazing! It stayed on the fence for quite a while, allowing me to take a whole host of images. After a while, as I was taking some images in vertical orientation, it flew off, and I managed to capture a sequence in camera AND better yet, they were in focus! Wooooo!! 🎉🎉🎉
Now I did have to do a bit of photoshopping to remove a bit of tree that was distracting from the image, but as 1) this is my image and I will do what I want with it, 2) I felt that leaving the tree in was ruining the image, and 3) who am I kidding, this is not going into a competition, removing the tree is fine. Now I didn’t remove it entirely, I just removed the top which was causing all sorts of distractions, and I think that this is absolutely fine to do, (especially as I have told you all about it and haven’t been all secretive about it).
The buzzard flew to a nearby tree top, and I was able to capture a few more images before it left and few off up the hill somewhere.
This was where I decided to mark my mission as achieved and leave on a high note. Damaging my camera was not ideal and did leave me feeling pretty stupid about myself, so finally being able to see the buzzard and get some STUNNING (not that I am bias) images of one, made up entirely for that.