buzzards

on my last shoot we had buzzards in the same wood as our pen and it was just just like mcdonalds for raptors . do you peg the rabbits down or just leave them on the field.
is one rabbit a day per buzzard about plenty
 
Shoot them and leave them.
A dose of mixy was handy around release time but I did sometimes wonder if an over abundance of dead stuff brought problems in too rather than solving them :confused:
 
Buzzards were a real problem on my shoot. Constantly terrifying the poults and taking them every day. Never found leaving out rabbits made the slightest difference! They would perch on the poles holding the netting and take half a dozen a day. What's more thay didn't stop at poults, they would start taking them at six weeks and keep on till they were full grown. To me they were a worse problem than foxes, at least you could do something about them.
Tawnies too were a pain, but at least they only killed poults at six weeks but even so they killed a very large number in a very short time.
 
Classic case of over protection at the cost of other wildlife and game.
I know we couldn't go on like the keepers did in the old days but things are getting well out of hand now.
 
I certainly agree at there is a case for control but interestingly, I've found that as I've moved further into Red Kite territory, there are less Buzzards than a similar habitat in areas with no kites would hold. I think they out-compete the buzzards for carrion and really don't touch healthy poults.
Its also interesting how some local populations of owls or buzzards seem predisposed to take poults and others do not.
The shoot where I first started used to suffer huge tawny owl problems. Not masses of kills but absolutely terrified poults trying to abandon the area to avoid the problem.
Yet here, I have a much denser population of tawny's and yet have not had one confirmed kill in three years.
I think it shows that we as land managers should be given all the tools to manage things as we need to and also I firmly believe that the huge growth of commercial shooting is responsible for the boom in raptor numbers anyway.
 
Yes, I use the CD's and also some flapping material (an old feed bag cut up or similar) on the top of some of the more exposed fence posts. That deterred a sparrow hawk. The positioning of the pen with good cover in there (as well as clear areas) is very important. I've also used scarecrows. It is, of course a bit difficult to know how effective these methods are. One way to look at it is that if the birds learn as poults that raptors are bad news and to get into cover fast, it'll stand them well when adults and out of the pens.
 
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