Forget the wide-open prairies of the mid-west. If you want to find the meanest, hungriest buzzards around, hunt no further than the quiet suburbs of Cowley in Oxford, writes REG LITTLE.

Pensioner Ron Smith learned to his cost that the buzzard is the latest bird of prey returning to Oxfordshire, after years of persecution and poisoning.

Only in Ron's case the comeback was not quite so welcome - as the giant bird dug its talons into his thumb for 20 minutes before an ambulance crew arrived.

The game 73-year-old made the mistake of trying to protect his daughter's goldfish pond from the buzzard by catching it in a fishing net.

Now it seems that he was doubly unlucky because he decided to pick on the wrong kind of buzzard.

For while these birds are more than capable of surviving in the wild, Mr Smith came up against a bird that had escaped from captivity and may have been actively hunting out human company.

Iain Corbyn, of the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Naturalists Trust, said: "It was obviously a captive bird, very used to people. Mr Smith would never have been able to get close to a wild buzzard. It was probably used to regular handling but you really need to call someone who is used to dealing with these birds. Trying to catch one in a net is just asking for trouble." Buzzards are in fact the third commonest bird of prey in the UK, behind kestrels and sparrowhawks. There are 100 breeding pairs living in the wild in Oxfordshire.

In the wild they feed off rabbits, hares, voles, crows and frogs but rarely fish and not cats, as Mr Smith feared when he was called to his daughter's home in Fern Hill Road.

According to Chris Harbard, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Mr Smith's attacker was in fact probably weakened and vulnerable.

He said: "It had probably taken to scavenging because it was unable to feed itself properly. This bird had probably gone from a life of luxury, being fed bits of rabbit, to suddenly having to fend for itself. It is lucky that the bird was recaptured, otherwise it is unlikely to have survived."

He said attacks on people by buzzards were extremely rare, only occurring when desperate birds were trying to defend themselves or their nests. His advice is to enjoy the buzzard's remarkable come- back. Up until the early 19th century the birds had been widespread in Oxfordshire.

But, according to Mr Harbard, the combination of pesticides, poisoning by gamekeepers and reduced numbers of rabbits meant they had been practically wiped out by the Second World War. The UK buzzard population is today estimated at between 50 and 60,000. Now they are spreading beyond their favourite haunts like Wales and the New Forest into central England.

With the population of the once near-extinct red kite in the county now put at 51 pairs, families around Stokenchurch have been taking to leaving out chicken and guinea fowl in order to attract kites to their gardens and see them coming down like "Stuka bombers".

Mr Smith, for one, might well prefer to leave buzzards to their own eating arrangements in the future.

BUZZ WORDS

THE buzzards so beloved of western movie makers are not buzzards at all. They are in fact turkey vultures

There is now an estimated 15,000 to 17,000 pairs of breeding buzzards in the UK

Buzzards have an average wingspan of between 4ft and 4ft 6in

They will take squirrels, mice, thrushes and frogs - but rabbits are their favourite food.

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