About a mile north of Hawkstor on Bodmin Moor is an area called East Moor. This is one of my favourite parts of the moor, littered with neolithic remains, ruined roundhouses and standing stones, including a fantastic stone circle called the Nine Stones, where during wetter months(i.e. most of the year in Cornwall) the stones actually stand in the middle of a pool of peat-stained water. Anyway, Sunday morning was beautiful and clear, so we trekked out over a beautiful domed hill (which the ordanance survey has imaginatively entitled "Ridge"). Avoiding a wandering gang of belligerent bullocks, we climbed the hill and reached the top to be greeted by the fantastic sight above us of an aerial battle between seven buzzards and five ravens. For maybe ten minutes they whirled about in the blue sky, tumbling rolling, clashing together then wheeling away. The buzzards flashed their talons,but the ravens, despite being outnumbered, definitely had the best of it - attacking and harassing the birds of prey again and again, all the time yelling their insults and generally driving the buzzards mad. Finally, probably deciding they couldn't stand any more hooliganism, the buzzards spiralled up higher on the warm air rising from the hill and eventually dispersed towards the distant bulk of Kilmar Tor. As for the Ravens, well they had a good laugh and flew off too. Typical corvids, all they'd wanted was a good scrap.
