Buzzard in the river!?!?

Another slightly autumnal day here today with strong winds and crispy leaves beginning to fall from the trees still with there emerald green glow of summer. Due to the weather being unpredictable I waited till the wind and rain stopped and in the early evening in the last rays of sun we set off to a place 5 minutes from my door to see if I could get an unplanned Otter encounter and having not been to this spot for a while I had no clue what I was going to find but what I did find was unexpected as I got a surprise of the bad kind.

 I climbed down into a narrow gulley where a shallow rippling stream flows past an unused Badger sett down into a faster flowing river and this is where I found a young Buzzard floating on the surface with an injury under it's wing.

Luckily the Buzzard was reachable so I grabbed the bird from the water and took it off into cover to examine the bird as I had no idea if the bird was shot and as it felt warm I guessed it happened recently. I checked the bird and I think it was a fledgling and possibly attacked by an adult and not shot but I could not be 100% positive. My theory is this younger bird flew into an adults territory and got into a scrap high above and was injured then fell into the river and drowned. I put the Buzzard in a tree stump to let it decompose for the skeleton and skull. I will be checking this area every few days to see if there are any more signs of shooting but hopefully the Buzzard will still be there and if the bird was shot a pellet will be left behind once the flesh has rotted away. If this is the case I will be having a word with the owners of the woodland on the opposite side of the river bank as they are wildlife lovers and will be happy to keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior.

Thanks for visiting

 

Mike