28 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



resembles their dreaded foe, the eagle. Not at all. The 

 kite is strange to them, and in wild nature the unrecognized 

 always results in fear and distrust. The kite has the 

 hovering flight of the bird of prey, yet they do not recog- 

 nize it. They know that it is not a buzzard — they do not 

 know what it is, and therefore nature takes her usual 

 course of safety first. In my own home country hundreds 

 of grouse were observed to leave the moor and fly in packs 

 across the valley the first time an aeroplane passed over 

 the heights, yet no one would say that they mistook the 

 aeroplane for an eagle. To-day planes pass over the 

 same moors fairly frequently, and the grouse have ceased 

 to heed them. They know ^' what they are " just as 

 grouse in Scotland know what buzzards are, and though 

 the flight of the buzzard might prove disturbing to the 

 grouse on an English moor, where the bird is practically 

 unknown, this is not generally so in Scotland. And the 

 more plentiful buzzards become, the better do the moor 

 game become acquainted with them, and the less do they 

 fear them.* 



If, then, the bad repute in which the buzzard stands is 

 undeserved, as I believe it is, it is a thousand pities that 

 the bird should be so ruthlessly shot down. Not long 

 ago I was motoring through the Cumberland hills when 

 I saw two buzzards tied to a gate with wings outspread 

 as tokens of some hunter's prowess — a sorrowful spectacle 

 for any bird lover ! I have had many nests under 

 observation during recent years, and by far the majority 

 have been destroyed. There is no way of preventing this 

 destruction except by removing the bad repute in which 



* Since writing this I have observed the behaviour of grouse on a Yorkshire 

 moor at the approach of a buzzard. One evening, on the moors immediately 

 north of Hutton-le-Hole, I was watching a buzzard soaring when presently it 

 slowly descended to the heather. As it did so grouse rose in all directions, just 

 as I have seen them rise in the Highlands from an eagle. They flew low, swerving 

 to avoid the butts, and so intently watching the bird of prey that one of them 

 almost flew into my face. This was the only buzzard I saw during six months 

 spent in the vicinity of Kirbymoorside. — H.M.B. 



