Buzzards, Kestrels & Sparrowhawks

They say you buy a house on a whim and we bought ours because the day I was talking to the builder about it, it was a gorgeous May morning, the sun was out and, as we sat on the patio, a buzzard was circling above the valley and meewing in the clear summer air. It seemed, and it was, quite idyllic and it was a no-brainer, that this was the place to live.

I was reminded of this a few days ago when we had three buzzards wheeling over the house at once. These are probably this year’s young, they will typically leave the nest in July but stay with the parents for up to 5 months. It is amazing that there are now an estimated 40,000 breeding pairs in the UK. Buzzards fledge at about 8 weeks and then will spend several months with their parents, so it’s likely that this group is one where the youngsters are beginning to find their way in life. Like so many humans, especially in rural areas, the kids don’t often stray far and recent studies show about a 3rd of the young birds stay within the area of their parents. Typical kids, eh.

To my surprise, however, there was a sudden flurry of wings around the bushes in the garden and a brown blur – it was a Sparrowhawk, an effective hunter that relies on maneuverability rather than sheer speed. It latched on a Wood Pigeon and although it initially dropped it in the drive but it was dead and the hawk rapidly returned to retrieve its supper. It was a bit sad but it’s the circle of life right in your front room.

Taking the dogs, Napoleon and Roy onto Bodmin Moor later, I trudged up the path along the infant De Lank river with Louden Hill on my right, Roughtor straight ahead and the old china clay works on my left. It was a breezy day, which on the moor means you need really good glue on your barnet, and ahead of me I was delighted to see a hovering Kestrel. When I was a kid, in the late Victorian period, Kestrel was probably the most common bird of prey and I remember how chuffed I was when I joined the junior branch of the RSPB, the Young Ornithologists Club, and got a metal Kestrel badge in the post. Small pleasures and it didn’t need batteries.

RSPB - Young Ornithologists Club

The Kestrel is a remarkable hunter. I watched this one dealing with a 30-40 mile an hour wind and I could see its tail and wings were adjusting to the wind strength continually but its head remained perfectly still as it scoured the ground for an unfortunate vole or shrew. It’s ancient name is “windhover” for pretty obvious reasons – no flies on our Anglo-Saxon ancestors – and although Buzzards will hover occasionally, nothing beats the aerodynamic skills of the Kestrel.

I stared at the old clay workings, now rehabilitated to form a series of steeply sloping terraces.

Old Clay, New Terraces

China clay is one of the gifts the intrusion of the granites has given Cornwall. As we saw in the last edition, the granite was intruded as molten rock into the earth’s crust some 300 million years ago, where it solidified and was eventually exposed by erosion to the tors and moors we see today. But, in that process, the granites brought minerals like tin, garnet, tourmaline and gold, heated the surrounding rock to form slate and created the option to mine the granite itself or produce china clay.

Granite – the term is often wrongly applied to other rock types – consists of quartz, feldspar and a shiny mineral called mica. Occasionally, the feldspar is chemically broken down to form kaolin – which is mined to produce china clay. China clay is important as it provides the means to make fine porcelain as opposed to the coarse earthen ware pottery that dominated our plebby ancestors in UK history. By 1910, Cornwall produced half of the world’s clay supply.

Whilst granite itself was produced from the mid 19th century from this area the clay pit at Stannon – described once as the biggest pit in the world – started in the early 20th century. The clay was produced and then piped, using gravity, over 5 miles to the huge drying pits at Wenford Bridge from where it was taken to Padstow by train. A quite remarkable feat of engineering and all due to the massive intrusions that occurred 300 million years ago!

Off the moor, the New Inn beckoned for a swift half as I had to speak to Piggy about a ramp I needed building from the garden to an adjacent field. It’s always important to interweave business and pleasure. It was late afternoon and few people were in, so we could chat easily. One of the sheep shearing lads was in, the season is nearly over but the fact that wool sells for pennies means it’s not worthwhile, yet sheep’s wool is an amazing insulation material and can have all sorts of uses – but we seem to prefer plastics and other man-made materials. Surely it’s time to get back to basics.

Funny old world, mine’s a pint.