Aanvallende roofvogels in het Noord-Kennemerlands Duin: ruiters als doelwit van Buizerds Buteo buteo

Between 2005 and 2014, in the dunes between Camperduin and Wijk aan Zee Buzzards attacked people in 11 out of 352 breeding cases (3%). For these attacks two Buzzard pairs were responsible. Both pairs had their nests in the dunes near Castricum, an area with a high number of visitors and a large number of Buzzard breeding pairs. The victims were mostly runners. In single cases the victim was a hiker or a cyclist. Recently, one of these Buzzards attacked a horseback rider (earlier cases are mentioned for 1994-2004). Between 1995 and 2004, 3 out of 223 Buzzard pairs (1%) had been recorded to attack people. The review of Krijgsveld et al. (2008) suggests that birds respond to disturbance sources moving fast and being unpredictable. This applies to runners, bikers on forest trails and galloping horses. However, few mountain bikers and horseback riders have reported Buzzard attacks.