A runner, recently attacked by a Buzzard near the Garburn Pass and injured seriously enough to require stitches and for the story to attract attention from the local and national press, would not be the first to have been on the receiving end of such aggression in the Lake District.

There are several documented instances of such an event though none involved an actual strike. W.R. Philipson considered the behaviour not unusual in defence of the nest and knew of several ferocious pairs in the Ullswater area prior to 1948 (Philipson 1948). In 1944 an observer was attacked by a female at a nest in a Scots pine while inspecting its clutch of two eggs (Brewster 1973). This author believed that young adult females nesting in remote locations and so not used to people were more likely to respond aggressively to a human intruder. In June 1956 on Kirkstone Pass, a recipient attributed the behaviour to the bird working off its aggression following an aerial encounter with a pair of Ravens, there being no obvious nest in the vicinity. (Hollick 1967). Geoffrey Fryer was regularly attacked by what he presumed to be the same female in a Lakeland valley in 1972, ’73 and ’74. These incidents occurred at both crag- and tree-nests and when eggs and young were in the nest. Despite many years of Buzzard monitoring this was the only bird to take a dislike to Geoffrey, except on one occasion since, at Skiddaw Forest, and apparently not in the vicinity of a nest. Geoff Horne, another Buzzard worker, has never suffered such an attack.

I myself was stooped at by a bird on an open slope of Skiddaw in 1988 and as there appeared no suitable site for a nest nearby, I assumed recently fledged young were in the vicinity.

Jeremy Roberts had a similar experience in 1999 at Southwaite when a bird stooped at him inside a wood when he believed he was close to an active nest. He offered the view that the habit may once have been more common but has been largely lost through evolutionary pressure as aggressive individuals are more likely to have been shot (Roberts 1999).

Finally, Bill Kenmir has suffered on more than one occasion in his study area at Haweswater but only after young have recently left the nest.

There are also several instances in the literature from outside Cumbria and, whilst this type of behaviour appears atypical in the Buzzard, the attribution of the most recent Garburn attack to a falconer’s bird, as was the case in the national press, might perhaps be erroneous.

The runner should count himself unlucky to have been struck and injured. However he should be thankful that it was only a Buzzard and not a Golden Eagle which ‘scalped’ him as happened to a raptor worker in Scotland in 1987!

Dave Shackleton

 References

Brewster, K.W.  1973.  Aggression by female Buzzard at nest.  British Birds 66: 279.

Fryer, G.  1974.  Aggressive behaviour by Buzzards at the nest.  British Birds 67: 238.

Hollick, K.M.  1967.  Buzzard stooping at human being.  British Birds 60: 90.

Philipson, W.R. 1948.  Birds of a Valley.  Longmans, London.

Roberts, F. J.  1999.  Angry Buzzard.  CBC News 10: 27

The Westmorland Gazette 29th June 2001

The Sun 6th July 2001