Vermivores

I mentioned Earthworms, as forming a significant element of the diet of the Gulls paddling around on wet playing fields at the moment. It's a good job that there are a lot of worms in the ground. With a quick calculation, on the back of a bar mat, I reckon that there are about 84.7 million tonnes of Earthworms in the British Isles. This could be a bit out depending on how many those gulls eat the other day.

As I was going wandering on my way the farm where I buy their delicious honey (St Margaret's Farm, in Napchester Lane) I noticed a lot of corvid activity in a field near by. It wasn't roosting time flocking, like that shown on Autumn Watch, but they did seem very agitated.

It was soon apparent that they were not happy at sharing their field with a couple of Common Buzzards, and several times tried to see them off. What about the worms? Well, all three of the Crows present, will eat worms if they are available and Buzzards, despite having a preference for Rabbits can also be seen picking out worms at the right time of year.

There were two Buzzards, that I saw. This one could be distinguished by the missing primary on the left wing.

It think that this is a medium morph adult bird. A juvenile would probably have streakier flanks.

The other bird, also look like an adult, and was a darker morph. It flew round, with the crows, seemingly unconcerned, but they all moved fields and I lost them.

It is such a joy to see Buzzards so frequently in Kent. Of course they'll probable get blamed for all sorts of things, such as attacking lambs, but in all cases that I've heard of they have been proved not to attack live lambs, but are known to take carrion.

These Red-legged partridges in the next filed certainly were unconcerned, this is just part of a larger covey that was feeding in the open.