When Buzzards Attack

 When I was a boy, the only place you ever saw buzzards was in wild, remote country. I think the first I ever saw were a pair circling over an abandoned quarry in wild west Wales – one of the very few pleasures of a miserable, wet week camping with the Boy Scouts (never again). Nowadays things are very different, and buzzards can be seen overhead almost anywhere, in city, town and suburb – and their presence is not without problems. In the gloriously named North London village of Havering-atte-Bower (remember Chaucer's Prioress who spoke French 'after the school of Stratford-atte-Bowe' rather than that of Paris?), a primary school has had to stop its pupils playing outside because of a dive-bombing buzzard, most likely one that is nesting nearby. According to the newspaper story, a buzzard or buzzards have been attacking villagers for months, and one victim of the buzzard terror describes the bird giving her the 'evil eye' as it closed in. Happily the school has turned the whole thing into a 'learning experience', with the children creating posters promoting the protection of birds – and they've nicknamed their buzzard 'Brenda', which seems a little tame. When a Harris hawk (which must have been an escape – it's a South American bird) recently started diving on villagers in Flamstead, Hertfordshire – showing a marked preference for tall middle-aged men – they nicknamed it Bomber Harris. It was finally humanely captured and handed over to a falconer – and its captor was a Mr Harris. What are the chances?