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Riding in Scotland? Beware of buzzards!

Riding in Scotland? Beware of buzzards!

Scottish rider attacked twice in three days
by John Stevenson
Fri, Jun 21, 2013 16:17
10

A cyclist in Scotland has been attacked twice in three days by a buzzard, reports the Galloway News.

Retired linesman Andy Reid, 65, was riding near Parton, Dumfries and Galloway on Friday morning, when the bird first had a go at him.

“It scratched me on the back of the head when it dived. It got away with my bandana,” he said.

And on Monday, he was followed by the same bird while cycling along Loch Ken.

“I went around Loch Ken at about 4pm and I saw it. It came right down to me.

“This has never happened to me before and then it happens twice!”

Local wildlife ranger Keith Kirk said: “Not that many buzzards attack people.

“But it seems there’s a thing they have for cyclists. I don’t know why.”

Back in the mid-2000s a buzzard from Devon was notorious for attacking cyclists.

In some parts of the world, it’s all part of the daily road hazards. Cyclists in Australia and New Zealand often have to withstand attacks from Australian magpies, especially in Spring when they beieve the are defending their nests.

Still, it could be worse. At least there are no cyclist-hunting mountain lions in the UK or Australia.

birds
buzzard
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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