BUZZARDS AND NEST

We have just returned from a trip to Shrewsbury to see Anna's parents.
I'm lucky that not only Anna enjoys country walks, her parents do too, and they live in a wonderful area of rolling Shropshire countryside, right next to the Severn.
On our walk on Saturday (as in the changed date and time of this post) we were lucky enough to see up to six Buzzards in the air at the same time.
The weather has been very warm and sunny for this time of year recently, (this week is set to be the same) and the raptors are certainly enjoying their new-found thermals.
I also saw that one of the Buzzards flew to, and landed on its nest, high in a tree in a small strip of woodland - something people in the west of the country will regard as quite normal I'm sure, but in the south-east, very rare to see.
This was the first Buzzard nest I'd ever found - I hope to go back and see how they are doing as the breeding season progresses.
As we drove home we saw an awful lot of Buzzards from the M54 and M40, (they are not rare - 2nd only to Kestrels in terms of actual population), but as soon as we hit Watlington on the M40, ALL the big raptors in the sky were Red Kites, not Buzzards.
Kites were introduced to our area a few years ago, and their numbers have exploded.
Whilst this is fantastic news, and they certainly are wonderful birds to watch, I cannot help feeling the Buzzards won't be able to expand their territory south and east over the country, with such a large (re-introduced) population of other (competing) raptors in the area.
We can see Kites every day from our house in Reading, but Buzzards are rare indeed.
I hope I'm wrong, and the Buzzards will get a 'look-in' soon...