170 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



nest, both sexes the male, known by his slightly 

 smaller size, often being the most agitated 

 wheeling and flapping above their haunt, though 

 seldom within shot, mewing distractedly, and often 

 most (oddly enough) when you are farthest from 

 their belongings. If the eggs are taken they fly 

 straight away without more ado. In other cases, 

 occasionally even when they have young, they are 

 only slightly noisy or not noisy at all, merely 

 flying silently away to return at intervals ; or 

 else they at once take up a position on some adjacent 

 tree or rock : the sentinel is seldom long absent 

 from its sitting partner. 



Very exceptionally a pair but the male in 

 particular will show fight, and literally attack an 

 intruder, the same couple resorting to these 

 drastic measures year after year. I have known 

 this happen to several friends, but I myself have 

 never yet been more than threatened, the angry bird 

 having approached me to within a few feet with 

 outstretched talons and beak wide open. Once, 

 too, as I scaled the rocks to reach an eyrie, the 

 female Buzzard stooped closely at an ewe and her 

 lamb, causing them thereby considerable panic. 

 At all times is the Buzzard given to inquisitive- 

 ness. Sometimes when lying motionless on the 

 moorlands I have known individuals to approach 

 me to within a very short distance, perhaps 

 thinking me dead ; again, when stumbling through 

 a shale-littered wood, a passing Buzzard has flapped 



