Today we watched as a buzzard caught his quarry, a small rabbit for his dinner.All was going well until the resident ravens spotted the commotion in the long grass on the edge of the field by the river.They thought that they could get the better of this much larger interloper, however he was the eventual victor.After landing unceremoniously on the manure heap ,he remained still and vigilant for 5 mins or so with ravens on guard duty before finally making his getaway up stream with rabbit firmly attatched. All this was going on within yards of the sandmartin colony which has been very active of late ,there was much circling around the front of the burrows.Could it be their way of trying to defend their colony.There must have been at least 40 of them taking part in this flying display.They did the same thing a few days ago when a Jay was on the war path and got too close to the foot of the bank.
Lis Collison