Volume 20, Plate XVIII / Ornithology (Birds)

Common Buzzard

Buteo vulgaris

Not uncommon in Britain, the Common Buzzard frequents the cultivated woodlands of England and the wildest Alpine parts of Scotland, building a large stick nest on a tree or rock ledge and laying three or four bluish white eggs blotched with brown. Seemingly sluggish, it hunts in low buoyant sweeps and pounces on small mammals, young birds, frogs, and toads, never seizing prey on the wing, and soars in graceful gyrations to great heights.