The Hill Buzzard 



bright in the sunshine, and to the westward of all lay the 

 Atlantic and her many islands calm and serene. The glen 

 this day re-echoed with the mewing cries cf several pairs 

 of buzzards. Sailing through the blue cloud-flecked sky 

 they wheeled and circled, at times swooping earthwards and 

 alighting on some boulder near the swiftly flowing burn, 

 where their tawny plumage could distinctly be seen as the 

 birds stood in the clear sunshine. It was late in April when 

 a pair of these birds chose as their nesting-site a ledge of 

 rock in a narrow ravine. The rocks here were of no great 

 height, and it was possible to walk right into the nest. Here 

 the first week of May I found three speckled eggs, their 

 number and smaller size alone distinguishing them from those 

 of the eagle. The buzzard did not leave her nest until I had 

 almost reached the nesting-ground, when she flapped off, 

 moving her blunt wings vigorously until she had reached 

 an altitude sufficient for her to soar in spirals over the hill- 

 side, often uttering her mewing cry, " pee-u, pee-u," the while. 

 Unlike the eagle, she had made little attempt at building a 

 nest, contenting herself with gathering a few twigs of dead 

 heather and tufts of grass. All along the ledge anemones 

 were in blossom, and were actually flowering in the nest 

 itself and close beside where the eggs were lying. I paid 

 several visits to the nest during May and June. The young 

 were hatched out safely and grew apace, though I never found 

 any food at the nest. By the end of June they were well 

 feathered!, and took their first flight during the early part of 

 July. 



The buzzard is sometimes a late nester, and this points 

 to the fact that, should the first clutch of eggs be destroyed, 

 the birds will lay a second time a thing which I have never 

 known the eagle do. On one occasion I was shown a 

 buzzard's nest as late as July 3, which contained one solitary 

 chick not more than twelve days old. The nest in this case 

 was situated on a small island where the birds had never 

 before been known to nest, and was built within a few yards 



