The Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) is a medium-sized hawk-like raptor with broad, rounded wings, often seen soaring in circles over fields and woodland edges while giving a characteristic plaintive "piäää" call. It measures 46–58 cm with a wingspan of 109–140 cm and a weight of 500–1,300 g, and the female is around 10% larger than the male, though the sexes look alike. The species shows extreme colour variation, from almost entirely white to nearly black individuals, which makes identification challenging; the most common form is brown-mottled with a darker breast band against a paler belly and breast. The broad, rounded wings are held in a shallow V during soaring flight with fingered primary tips, the tail is short and fan-shaped with fine barring, and the head looks small and round relative to the body.
The call is a plaintive, nasal "piäää", reminiscent of a cat's meow, heard often in soaring flight and used in territorial disputes and nest communication; young at the nest give a shriller, more persistent "piih-piih". Common Buzzards occur across the whole region, most numerous in farmland mixed with woodland, and are partial migrants — many southern birds are resident, while northern populations move short distances to winter in southern Europe and North Africa. The nest is a large stick structure placed 5–20 m up in a sturdy deciduous tree or pine at a woodland edge, often reused and added to year after year; the female lays 2–3 pale yellow, red-spotted eggs incubated by both parents for 33–38 days, and the young fledge after 44–50 days. Voles and mice make up 60–70% of the diet, supplemented opportunistically by frogs, lizards, snakes, young rabbits and birds, earthworms on wet fields, and carrion, which becomes especially important in cold winters — the buzzard often hunts by watching from a perch such as a roadside pole or by soaring overhead. The species is classified as Least Concern (LC).
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