Country diary: Dinner time for the buzzard family is not a dignified affair | Kate Blincoe

Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: We have three breeding pairs on the farm, and one in particular has been a source of fascination and amusement

I’m out on the farm most days, but I miss so much. It took a few days to notice a mother mallard with her late brood of 12 ducklings until they were all dabbling in a yard puddle. Dad sees more than me. He told me of the lazy adult buzzard that waited in a tree, then dive-bombed a peregrine that had caught a pigeon. The peregrine dropped its prey, which the buzzard then delivered to a hay bale already strewn with feathers. A pair of juvenile buzzards swiftly followed, ready for a meal.

Later, Dad placed the trail camera at the bale. The young buzzards were soon back in position with yet another dead pigeon. The footage tells a story that many parents will recognise after the long summer holidays.

One young buzzard claims the pigeon, turns its back on the other and opens its wings around the food. Known as “mantling”, it creates a share-proof barrier. The other bird looks disgruntled, shifting around, head down, trying to work out a plan. It sticks a leg out under its sibling’s defensive wings and is told off with a shrill screech.

Opting instead for being persistently annoying, it eventually provokes the pigeon-possessor to rise in attack. There’s a funny moment when both birds overbalance and plummet off the side of the bale. Another high-pitch squeak arises, off-camera. I shouldn’t anthropomorphise, but the expressions of the birds throughout this little drama do seem very familiar.

There are three pairs of buzzards that nest on the farm, each wood has its couple. Usually seen soaring on thermals above the farm, or loafing around in the woodland canopy, they are in turn majestic and clumsy. Despite centuries of persecution, followed by the myxomatosis outbreak in the 1950s that reduced their favourite rabbit prey, buzzards somehow persisted, and more recently increased in numbers.

The bales have now been cleared from the fields and this next generation of buzzards must fend for themselves.

Meanwhile, back in the yard, each night there is a diminishing of ducklings. We’re down to eight now. Still an impressive amount in the numbers game of reproduction, but they have a long way to go until they too are independent.

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