While cutting grass by my old barn today, I noticed some things out of place from where there were several days ago. We have problems with trespassers at times, so I decided to check things out to make sure nobody had been up to no good. That involved, of course, going upstairs.

The hay loft door was unlatched, so I believe someone had been in there. I latched it, was getting ready to look around when I was told to not make any sudden moves, that something was growling at us and moving around in the hay. Our first thought was a fox, coyote or possibly a feral cat. It wasn’t making much effort to get away from us, which in itself was a little disconcerting. It was fairly dark inside and we had no flashlight so we decided to ease away until we were better prepared.

Not knowing what might be in there, we went back armed with flashlights and gun. We had no intentions of shooting anything unless we had no choice – like it trying to attack or being sick or rabid. From a distance and from the angle we were at and the fact it seemed to have it’s back towards us, at first it looked like a hunched over monkey of some kind. We looked closer and were surprised to find a young buzzard, still with down on it. I have no idea how old he is, but he’s a whopper – I’d say already the size of a chicken. The sounds he made were quite interesting. Although the photo looks as though it was taken close up it wasn’t – I used a zoom in order to not upset him.

Although I was born and raised in the country, I’d never seen a baby buzzard (some people call them vultures) before so it was a treat. For now we’ll avoid the area he’s in and hopefully he’ll be flying around in a few weeks.