A guest diary from Barbara from three weeks ago:
Tuesday 23rd November 2021
A buzzard chased by a crow swoops between the houses across the road, it appeared to have something long in its talons, Richard said a snake, I doubt it but can’t imagine what it could be
Barbara Bell
We looked in the road to see if it had dropped anything. We now suspect that this must have been an escaped bird of prey with jesses still attached. We thought how unusual it would be to see a buzzard flying so low, even when mobbed by crows, so perhaps it was some other species, such as a harris hawk.
Cache of Nuts
Later that morning we walked around St Aidan’s RSPB reserve in the Aire Valley:
After a welcome cuppa at Rivers Meet, Methley, we stride out back over the river bridge, lovely big blue sky and feeling quite warm in the sun.
We pause to watch a Jay at the side of the path. It seems to have found a cache of nuts and is unearthing them. We watch it from a short distance: the colours of the blue on its wing and the black moustache show up really well in the clear light. Meanwhile a perky robin forages around behind.
Barbara Bell
The jay removed six or more peanuts from each of several holes dotted around the turf within a few yards of each other. Had the jay previously cached them, or had it spotted a squirrel burying them?
We weren’t far from the village of Methley, so perhaps these had come from a garden feeder. In which case I think that it would more likely be a bird that cached them because the river would present too much of an obstacle to a squirrel and we were perhaps 200 yards along the path from the bridge.