Beautiful young buzzards in our garden this morning!

[werdnal]

We have a resident pair of buzzards who produce 1 or 2 youngsters from their nest in a small fir plantation a few hundred yards from our house every year. This year there are 2, who started to fledge a couple days ago, and this morning (as the youngsters often do on their first tentative flights), they found their way into our garden. We have a small stream which runs through it from our pond, and one was quite fascinated with the water - probably the first its seen. It was walking up and down the side for a few minutes, then put one foot in, and jumped back, unsure about the strange sensation. Then as if by instinct it started fluffing its wings and bobbing about, even though it was not actually in the water. When it finally realised that you do need to get in to have a bath, it went for it with gusto, sending water everywhere and apparently really enjoying its first real wash!

Meanwhile its nestmate was exploring the garden, poking at things with its feet, and trying to work out whether the odd leaf and bit of twig was something edible and pulling up little tufts of grass. Bath over, the first one flew to our fence for a quick preen, and the one on the grass soon joined it, landing rather wobbly in the fence, then working its way along, taking in all the new sights and sounds around it, before they both flew off and into a large tree nearby.

Beautiful sight, with them only a few feet from our window, and lovely to see them trying to make sense of the new world they have discovered now they can fly!

But do you know the saddest thing about it? Hubby was the one who saw it, and related the lovely story to me, and I was still asleep! So wish he'd woken me up

Just got to hope they come back tomorrow

[Naturenutz]

sounds like a lovely wildlife experience .

[Carol ann]

Fingers crossed for a re-visit.