128 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



should be protected and encouraged accordingly, 

 Seebohm describes the note of this bird as a 

 melancholy pe-e-i-o-oo. In our islands the breeding 

 season of the Common Buzzard is in April and 

 May. Its British breeding haunts are not only in 

 large woods, but on maritime cliffs, and as it re- 

 turns to a locality year by year to rear its young, 

 it may not improbably pair for life. The nest is 

 either made in a tree or on a ledge of some cliff; 

 when in the latter situation, frequently made 

 amongst ivy or under the shelter of a bush. It is 

 large, flat, and made externally of sticks, lined 

 with finer twigs, a scrap or two of wool, and 

 quantities of green leaves — the latter apparently 

 being renewed from time to time. The eggs are 

 from two to four in number, usually three, and 

 vary from white or pale buff to pale bluish green 

 in ground colour, blotched, splashed, and spotted 

 with reddish brown, paler brown, and grey. The 

 female performs most of the duties of incubation, 

 and when flushed from her charge sometimes 

 circles round the spot uttering a monotonous note. 

 This species is single-brooded. 



The Common Buzzard is a species that presents 

 considerable variation in the colour of its plumage, 

 and a description of these would take up far more 



