A Chance Encounter.

Today I spent the day in the company of Andy Carey, it was our intention to photograph Hawfinch. Unfortunately we drew a blank, we saw one female but the birds were extremely flighty and disappeared into the trees at the slightest disturbance. There were a number of Bramblings that showed with a flock of Chaffinch but they were not our target.

We decided to try New Fancy in the hope of a Crossbill or two. We were on route to these when Andy spotted a Buzzard in trees near the road. There's nothing unusual about Buzzard in the Forest but this one seemed not to be afraid of us when we stopped the cars in a nearby pull in. At one point the Buzzard was literally only 20 metres or so away from us and still appeared to be unfazed.

This allowed the chance for some time to be taken preparing the shots, we were still aware that this was unusual and expected the Buzzard to take to the skies at any minute. It did flit from tree to tree but stayed in a very small area for quite some time. I've no idea what was keeping the Buzzard in the area there was nothing immediately noticeable.

In the area at the time were a pair of Mistle Thrush. I managed to get one shot albeit from a distance.

Also present were Song Thrush.

We left the area and returned on two further occasions and still the Buzzard was in the same location. A real chance encounter.