Buzz, Buzz, Buzzard

There are a pair of buzzards are living near us and they can be spotted most days. Today while Hannah and I were driving down the road we saw one swoop down on prey in the corner of a field just beside the road. I was delighted to get such a close view. I said to Hannah,

Wow! We were lucky to see that.

Wasn’t so lucky for whatever it was got caught.

Oh well. That’s nature. Poor you moving to the town. All the wildlife you’ll see there will be mangy cats, scabby pigeons and rats.

Don’t care.

When Katy was little she asked Bert this,

Why do they call them buzzards? Is it because they make a buzzing sound?

If we’d have been decent parents like Mr Bolan we’d have got the bird books out and arranged a visit to the Natural History Museum, stimulated the child’s interest and stuff like that. Instead we laughed our legs off at her, gave her a complex and slagged her about it to this very day. My idea of a fun natural history lesson was telling Hannah all about the savage child eating bears that lived in the (local) woods. May God forgive me for I doubt the weans ever will.