How the acrobatic buzzard survived persecution to become one of Britain's best avian hunters

Of all our raptors, common buzzards (Buteo buteo) are the most likely to provide us with the twin pleasures of sight and sound. In those peerless blue skies on sunny afternoons in late March, buzzards are invariably on the wing performing near-effortless spirals as they fire down salvoes of the softest, rising cat-like call. Mewing buzzards in display are one of the most affecting indicators of the British spring and now part of its very essence.

There are at least 64,000 pairs spread more evenly through these islands than any other raptor, but this wasn’t always the case. In the early 20th century, persecution had driven them to the western fringes and, even as late as the 1970s, the species was almost trapped to the west of a line between Southampton and Liverpool. Their strongholds w