Photo: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
Buzzard
Buzzards are our most numerous and widely spread birds of prey. The females are clearly larger than the males. Very varying colour changes occur in their plumage during life and it makes identification more difficult. The beak and claws of buzzards are black and the feet and cere yellow. In the sky buzzards can be identified by the white-flecked rounded wings, raised in a V shape in flight. Young and adult birds are largely similar, only the underparts of young birds are usually without the crosswise pattern but the breast and belly may have dark lengthwise streaks and the light feather margins are more noticeable.
In September-October they follow the flocks of passerines towards south. Some hundred up to a thousand birds winter in Estonia.