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Buzz off, buzzard! Star Witness picture captures crow dive bombing bird of prey

This stunning image captures a crow dive bombing a buzzard in mid-air over fields in the Black Country.

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The shot was taken over the farmers fields in Fishley Lane, Bloxwich by Mark Schlicht, who said the buzzard was being chased by the crow for a quite some time before it managed to fly away.

Mr Schlicht, aged 44, of Simmonds Road in the town enjoys taking photographs of nature in his spare time and said he was luck to capture the image on camera.

"My back garden backs onto the canal and a some fields, and I was feeding the ducks when I noticed a group of birds squabbling," he said.

"There were three crows chasing a buzzard at first so I decided to go back into the house and get my camera out.

"It took about ten minutes set up and I had the wrong lens on it so I had to change that too, but two of the birds were still there - which was a stroke of luck."

Mr Schlicht runs his own business selling incense sticks, and has now been taking nature and wildlife shots for nearly five years.

A regular past-time of his, he will regularly visit Cannock Chase nature reserve and Chasewater country park in a quest to get the perfect picture.

"I often go to Cannock Chase to try and get shots of nature, even of the deer during rutting season, but this shot is the first one I've ever got of birds in contact like that.

"There is usually a heron that pops up round by my house but I never seem to have my camera ready, and by the time I set it up - it is gone."

Taking photos of nature has become Mr Schlicht's main hobby, and it is the unpredictability of it that he loves.

"I take pictures of nature because you never what you're going to get - it is unpredictable," he added.

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