The more I think about this post the more upset I become. It is an absolute privilege to have as many wild and beautiful birds of prey in the skies now a days..  When I grew up in the 1950's it was a massive event to even see a bird of prey with the exception of Kestrels which were quite common and seen very regularly. Now they are not as common as formerly but you will see a Buzzard on every trip to the countryside.  Not only Buzzards but Peregrine Falcons, Red Kites (I saw one yesterday for example)  and  Osprey.  Buzzards are now the enemy of the shooting fraternity and they want to kill them.  Its as plain and blunt as that.  Buzzards may or may not take the odd pheasant chick (this is doubtful I wold say and I think Tawny Owls would take far more, are they next).  Now, we all know that any drive down a country lane will eventually bring you to a pheasant carcass, run down and left to die. This is because Pheasants are released in massive numbers every year so that they can be blasted out of the sky. Pheasants are not native to this country, they are only here because they make good quarry to shoot at.  While I except that a lot of people rely on the shooting industry for their livelihood it must be understood that Pheasants are not native to the UK. The presence of them probably has a lot to do with the predation of millions of caterpillars of both Butterflies and Moths…… could this be why Butterflies are in decline?  Who knows, but leave the Buzzards alone, they are native to the environment, were here first and if you release a stupid defenceless pheasant chick from captivity and in to the wild, then you must accept that it is going to be an easy target.

   Below is an extra t from the BAWC website  , visit by clicking on the link.  It  talks of Natural England planning to give a license to gamekeepers to shoot Buzzards.  This is an absolute outrage and if it goes ahead we should picket the Natural England HQ…… please read the article.

"The news that a shooting estate had applied to Natural England to remove up to 10 Buzzards that were dangerous to growing pheasant poults came as little surprise.

Shooting organisations are routinely lobbying to have Buzzards added to the General Licence, a list of species that may be shot or trapped on sight without the pain of having to fill out a few forms.

While the rest of society quite correctly is obliged to heed the legal protection that Buzzards were given after their numbers declined hugely after decades of persecution by gamekeepers (and then the spread of myxomtatosis in the 1950s which killed huge numbers of rabbits), the shooting industry feels they should be exempt.

In 2012, as many of us will never forget, Defra revealed a plan to research various options to reduce Buzzard predation on pheasants by destroying nests or taking (presumably rogue) Buzzards from shooting estates and into captivity. Public outrage caused the plans to be dropped – at least publicly.

Shooting estates were never going to go away though. They are fixated on the minute numbers of the 40 million plus reared non-native birds they release into the countryside every year that are predated by Buzzards. Interestingly, they have not yet started on banning cars near shooting estates, even though vehicles kill far more pheasants than Buzzards ever will. No, far easier to have a go at a native British bird species that – as the conviction of a gamekeeper filmed beating two Buzzards to death in 2013 proved – is already on the hit list of an industry that apparently wants to believe that the rules don’t apply to them.

Well, the rules and the law of the land do apply to them. And that’s what really sticks in their craw. How much more profitable things would be if the law DIDN’T apply.

There is no doubt that changing the law is what is at stake here. Lobbying for a change in the laws protecting wildlife is extensive, and applications to ‘remove’ a few Buzzards are as much ‘testing the water’ as they are serious attempts to circumvent wildlife protection. These licence applications will keep coming in until – will be the hope – they are no longer newsworthy or no longer commented on.

That day, as far as BAWC and numerous other groups and organisations are concerned will never come. It will never be right to kill protected birds and we will never stop saying so.

The one thing that stops an open season being declared on Buzzards and other birds of prey is the law. It may not be perfect, it is often weak in fact, but it is vitally important. We must protect it, and we must be continually vigilant that it is not eroded. Both are up to all of us to ensure, because make no mistake there are powerful interest groups that loathe raptors and right now are working to have that protection removed."