Buzzards
A reader who used to live in South Wales remarks that he has recently been watching buzzards in Northern Ireland and wonders if they are returning to South Wales too. The buzzard has always been reported as being much more common in South Wales than in the north. At one time in my locality in North Wales, buzzards were not to be seen. The first I came across I was astonished to sec sitting on a branch of a tree beside the road. Before I could say the word ' buzzard ' it sailed away. There was no mistaking the rounded wings and the charac- teristic flight. Possibly, although, as Coward says, the buzzard is not k great trouble to gamekeepers, the slackening of game- preserving during the war had something to do with the bird's recovery and appearance in places where it had hitherto been absent. A wild animal has little chance of re-estab- lishing itself when conditions live gone against it, but there is always a c ance that birds, less affected by immediate localities, may re-appear. The bittern came back and the avocet has had its publicity. One day the corncrake may again be as common as it was at the beginning of the century and I have a faint hope that I may see the red- legged jackdaws' (choughs) that my father once told me the boys of his native village so eagerly sought on the cliffs.
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