The Buzz #2
I’m still admiring the Stover Country Park Buzzard.
![Common Buzzard - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Stover-The-Hall-of-Einar-0149.jpg)
It’s a glorious bird and seems oblivious to the crowd of people on the aerial walkway who are fascinated by it:
![Common Buzzard - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Stover-The-Hall-of-Einar-0282.jpg)
It’s entirely focussed on the potential food below. There’s a mixture of mice, rats and Squirrels to tempt it:
It’s often covered by branches, has its back to us, is obscured by a tree-trunk or silhouetted against the sun in the most frustrating way possible. Luckily today it’s giving wonderful views.
![Common Buzzard - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Stover-The-Hall-of-Einar-9897-725x483.jpg)
Buzzards are routinely persecuted by gamekeepers employed by rich landowners in Britain, with illegal traps, poisoned bait and shotgun blasts. Here’s a classic example ‘Norfolk buzzard poisoning gamekeeper sentenced‘:
Here it is in Scotland, ‘Rare birds poisoning toll reaches 16’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-26871358/rare-birds-poisoning-toll-reaches-16
And it’s not just Buzzards which are endangered by illegally kept poisons: ‘Dogs and buzzards die after being deliberately poisoned’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-44039176
Why are they targeted? Mainly to increase the multi-million pound profits from shooting pheasant and grouse.
![Common Buzzard - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Stover-The-Hall-of-Einar-9918-725x483.jpg)
I think Buzzards deserve protection and not persecution. What do you think?