We glimpse a large brownish bird swooping up into the branches at the edge of a small wood in the Smithy Brook valley. It can’t be a grey partridge as they wouldn’t perch so high in a tree and it wasn’t small enough to be a mistle thrush.
As we walk on there’s a commotion; a buzzard is circling, gaining height and it’s in dispute with two much smaller birds of prey. They both look like sparrowhawks. 
One flies off down the valley the other returns to the wood while the buzzard heads off up the valley, presumably happy that it has shown them who is boss.
Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998