Hands deep in the washing-up bowl, I hear the unmistakable call of a buzzard. I always think of this sound – “Pyew! Pyew!” – as a cat imitating a six-shooter. What I don’t do is look up. A quarter of a century ago, when I first moved to this valley in the Sheffield suburbs, hearing a buzzard outside my house would have had me running outside to get a glimpse of it. Since then, however, buzzard numbers have more or less doubled and the raptor’s steady 20th-century recovery – accelerated by the 1954 Protection of Birds Act – has reached my neck of the woods.
I use the phrase deliberately because the narrow strip of development I inhabit is set in a much wider block of ancient coppice oak wood. To the east of the valley, beyond these woods, are a number of golf courses. This seems to me ideal habitat for a bird that builds its nest in trees but seems happiest mooching about the fairways half‑hunting for worms. Buzzards do like to hang out.
There’s a second burst of feline gunfire, only this time much closer. This time I do look up, and see a buzzard hanging off the breeze near the crown of a nearby oak. I open the kitchen door to watch. A second buzzard soon arrives, the female judging by the disparity in size. Female buzzards can be up to a third bigger than their mates.
There then follows some buzzard courtship. These displays can be dramatic, with the male tumbling from the sky, or else turning upside down under the female, talons extended towards his partner. None of that is happening now. Instead, the two birds skate around the crown of the oak, almost as though they’re dancing – a stylish, choreographed series of slides and flaps as they swap places, from left to right and back again, following each other’s moves as though they’ve been practising this for years. As of course they might have, since buzzards mate for life.
Perhaps they are reuniting for another breeding season. But first, the dance.
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