I know I talk a lot about buzzards, as we have quite a few in the vicinity. They also tend to make themselves obvious by loitering with intent on the top of telegraph poles and playing around elegantly on thermal currents. But we also have red kites - not as many, possibly only one pair. They apparently drove out some buzzards to claim their nest site somewhere round behind the church, which was where I took B&B yesterday afternoon.
I saw a sizeable raptor flying fairly low across a field. It didn't look quite like a buzzard, but the angle wasn't good enough for me to sure it was a kite: I know from experience that the angle of view can be very deceptive. It then flew into a small poplar copse with the agility of a buzzard - for big birds, buzzards are incredibly deft and quick through timber. There was another one already in residence and they started calling before both taking off and circling round - but still too low for a proper look, plus they were slightly downhill, where the Ladybird landscape slopes away to the level land at the bottom.
The calls didn't sound like buzzards ('Kee-ararar!), and were more of a 'Wee-eee-eee-er! Kee-weee-ee-eer!' They kept it up, on and off, for twenty-plus minutes, until I was more than halfway round the circuit and flogging back up to the hill towards the church.
So, wrong call and wrong flight pattern for buzzards, and in what I think of red kite turf... Probably red kites. I have consulted Dr. Google. Red Kites.
Other than, spud lifting continues. From my window I can see a tractor with potato crates on its trailer, so it's either carting them off, or heading back to the enormous machine that's doing the really hard work of lifting them. They were at it before 7.15 this morning, when I went to get the bins in. The arable farmers are putting their feet up a bit at the moment (mowing verges, ditching, perhaps starting to cultivate the stubble) but the ones who have any root crop are still hard at it: spuds and onions, and then sugar beet, which will drag on for months.