Buzzard moments

Well we didn't get the clear day that had been forecast but we did get a drier day and were, for our perseverance, finally rewarded with a big moon rising through a clearing sky. Who knows but that tomorrow might be that clear day we have been waiting for. I did manage another buzzard moment though. Another? What do you mean another? Well two days ago as I was coming down from setting that night's stove I arrived at the edge of the sun terrace (no sun just a dull drear sky hanging everywhere) just as two buzzards separated. They had been flying west wingtip to wingtip but as they saw me appear the southernmost bird peeled off to the south and the remaining bird the ever so slightly larger of the two passed not five feet in front of my popping eyes and about on a level. Close enough that I could make out the individual feathers glistening.

And today's encounter? Suffice to say that today's encounter was equally unexpected and just as spectacular. Gill was down in Lav1 weeding and pruning and I was in the carage  chopping kindling when the dogs began to bark an alarum.  Thinking that it was a cat from next door making its annoying way home via the stairs I let things but the barking continued. I ventured out to shoo the offending feline on its way and without checking the dogs I ran round to the stairs where I had assumed the mog was making moggy delay and thus infuriating our noble canines but, like Mother Hubbard, when I got there the staircase was bare and so the poor doggies had no fun watching me wave my arms and make strange shooing noises. But when I turned back I noticed, I should have checked before, the girls were barking still but they were barking down between the olives. Suddenly a buzzard came flying low out of the  shadow . So low that he was only marginally airborne. And as he came direct toward me I saw why he was not properly skybound - hanging from his impressive talons there dangled a medium sized rat. The rat was struggling and the buzzard was all aflap - it was a natural struggle and it was clear that the rat was fighting for his life. The buzzard achieved proper take-off not 12 feet away and passed above my head with his snack firmly secured and ominously still. The struggle was over.

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