Buzzards

When we lived on Ardnamurchan buzzards were always the most common of the raptors and, to our surprise, when we moved to Felixstowe we found that they were almost as common there. These days, in this part of Sutherland, we have a problem because, although we occasionally hear....

....a buzzard's plaintive cry high above the forested slopes of Bheinn Bhraggie, we only occasionally....

....see one.

One reason for their decline may well be the increasing scarcity of a quite different species, the humble....

....rabbit, of which we see precious few these days - this one was spotted enjoying the grass in a neighbour's garden. Rabbits are top of the menu for buzzards and the worrying drop-off in rabbit numbers seems to have occurred over this winter.

I don't know what the problem is with our rabbits. It may be disease, though we haven't, thank goodness, come across any distressed rabbits. It may be that, since the pandemic, more and more dogs are being walked through the areas they used to favour. It may simply be that the balance between predators and prey has been unbalanced. However, it isn't just these two species which seem to be struggling - for example, we're seeing precious few red kites these days.

One just has the feeling that Nature is struggling in a world more and more dominated by man.