Watch out for flying barn doors

Chairman Peter Shallcross reports -

​'Last year, six juvenile white-tailed eagles were released on the Isle of Wight, where they haven’t bred since 1780. Like the great bustards on Salisbury Plain (which we visited last August), they tend to travel widely when young and some of them go as far as Norfolk before returning. In fact, I saw one over the farm in Wardour, where it slowly drifted across the sky towards Donhead.

​'They have been likened to a ‘flying barn door’, as they are so large. The buzzards spiralling below, keeping an eye on it, were certainly dwarfed.

'With the weeks of hot weather there have plenty of thermals for the buzzards and red kites to use.'