Eeeek!

The fieldfares wisely decided to take flight when the buzzard chose to get a little closer to them .... There were actually a pair of buzzards in the field, they do eat earthworms when other prey is not available and that is what this one had been doing, but I think the buzzard felt that it would definitely have preferred a nice fieldfare for lunch, if it could have got one.

I always feel sorry for fieldfares (a member of the thrush family) - they are quite an attractive bird, particulary when one takes into account the UK's fairly limited colour palette for small birds.  But even so they surely deserve a better Latin name than Turdus Pilaris.  Puts the expression LBJ or Little Brown Job into a whole new and rather unpleasant perspective doesn't it?

The weather has definitely taken a turn for the more seasonal finally.  Its colder, quite a bit colder than it has been and the breeze is busy removing all the remaining leaves from the trees.  As Cathy went for a walk this morning there was a fairly continual flurry of falling leaves.  

I was rather pleased to spot a male stonechat in one of the fields, which makes two stonechats in a week.  That is definitely a bit of a record from my perspective.  I've included him as an extra although he's a long way away even with the 500mm lens and a crop - he's about the same size as a robin.  But he's sort of the bookend to the female stonechat that I saw on Wednesday and I like the symmetry of that.  Its been a good few days for avian wildlife.