Buzzards have the characteristic restiveness of a species falling excruciatingly short of the pinnacle… a largish raptor but not the largest, quite fast but not the fastest, a long distance wayfarer but never venturing the farthest… and thus buzzards keeps on adapting, to habitats and to prey, choosing to remain in a state of flux and rejecting the comforting confines of mediocrity despite knowing that the apex is beyond their reach…

‘Tis poignant yet gratifying, watching birds of prey subsist… the singleness of purpose, the precision of velocity, a panache to the glutton, epitomes of acuity… fatalism is their trade to ply… some go about it flamboyantly, some opportunistically, some soar through the clouds for hours on end and some make it suffice with short bursts of speed… like the bassline to a song, they thrum to the beat of the ecosystem, lending it a structure hidden deep beneath its folds…

We were chasing falcons in the seemingly endless expanse that was the dry salt bed of Sambhar Lake, a sizeable inland salt lake that is a familiar haunt of illegal salt miners, film production units, overzealous off-roaders, and last but not the least, a diverse assemblage of avifauna including many migratory species preferring to winter in these arid surrounds…

Driving on the lakebed at sunrise, rather directionless looking for signs of aerial activity, a long-legged buzzard caught the eye and we (tried to) sneak up on it, a bright blue jalopy in an open brown expanse not quite wining accolades for camouflage… this one had a fresh kill to devour, adding flavour to our chase, but was rather reticent for this reason, taking off at the slightest sign of proximity…

Long-legged buzzards straddle the upper middle echelons in quite a few aspects, following vultures and eagles, be it size, weight or choice of prey… perceived as sluggish, an attribute not entirely accurate but one that may have been ascribed due to their relatively slower flight, and tentative movements on the ground…

The kill turned out to be a yellow-footed green pigeon, not unnatural but uncommon for the raptor which prefers small mammals like rodents, and there were plenty of jirds around… maybe the rodents weren’t out of their burrows so early and the pigeon provided for an easy breakfast… predictably possessive of the deceased, it waddled across the turf much chagrined as we tried to inch in closer, taking off a couple of times with the kill and then losing a substantial chunk of it the third time around… one could feel the irritation in its expression as it polished off the remainder, picking the bones clean before partaking in a customary pre-flight defecation and then duly taking off…

We waited for a while to see if it would be able to locate or come back for the victuals it had left behind, but then felt a tad guilty about being such a pester for recreational motives and left the bird to its devices, or rather, the bird left us to ours, as we rolled the windows up and sped up to irritate other birds…

Musing on a long-legged buzzard, Sambhar Lake, Rajasthan