Buzzard Saga.

Buzzards are fairly common around here so when I first started this blog I thought it would be easy to get a good buzzard picture. I drive up and down this hill every day on my way to work and often there are 1 or 2 buzzards sitting on top of the telegraph poles that follow the road.

Normally they stay put even when you drive past but if you try and stop, even to take a photo through the windscreen........ they're off! I spent weeks scanning for those pesky birds, I tried coasting down the hill, camera at the ready, sunroof open in case I could get a better shot that way, even parking around the corner and crouching behind the hedge trying to creep up on the birds ....... but they always spotted me before I could get the camera aimed and focused. Irritatingly there was often a buzzard in the fields along the drive, sometimes just sitting on the fence or even just a few feet away.

I took to driving along our drive with the window open, the camera balanced on the steering wheel which I held with one hand while I kept waking up the camera by pushing the zoom button with the other hand. Eventually I got this long distance slightly blurry photo of a buzzard perched magnificently on ........ a pile of horse dung.

Another long distance photo showing just how big a buzzard is. They are about the same size as a golden eagle, (a falconer brought one to a WI evening).

When Johnny Kingdom came to our WI I asked his advice about how to get a good buzzard photo and he told he had found them very difficult to photo so I don't feel so bad that I still haven't managed to get a good photo.

I managed to do some more work in the garden this morning before going in to teach the reception class in the afternoon. I drove over to Sainsbury's after work, I rarely go there because it way out on the other side of town and generally more expensive than the supermarkets I go to. It is much bigger than the other supermarkets and I wasted a lot of time because it was full of families doing their week-end shop and also I didn't know where things were. They do have a very good clothes section and I treated myself to a zip up fleece hoody in a dull plum colour which I couldn't resist because it has a fluffy furry lining. I'm such a sucker for anything fluffy or sparkly though 50% of my wardrobe is black. No I'm not a goth, it's just I feel slimmer in black, but I do have lots of bright crocs to liven up my outfits.