Top photo resembles Rough Legged Buzzard although the tail pattern looks a bit odd, bottom pic also resembles Rough Leg or abbarrent Common Buzzard ??. Another question is how do you get so close to a wild bird.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Buzzard ID
Top photo resembles Rough Legged Buzzard although the tail pattern looks a bit odd, bottom pic also resembles Rough Leg or abbarrent Common Buzzard ??. Another question is how do you get so close to a wild bird.
5 comments:
I cannot go with Common Buzzard mainly because the face is too 'kind' looking. They look much more aggressive than this one.
It looks more like a Rough-legged but I just can't see a truly wild bird allowing such a close encounter!
This is a right tester.
A juv R L does have pale/white primary bases but the tail markings don't look just right either. Baffled!
It does look like a juv RL,even the iris looks pale if you enlarge the pic.Tail pattern does look a bit odd but the wings look bang on...how you get that close for a photo is puzzling unless it was exhausted.???There was a influx of RL at that time in the county/country.??
Could be the same bird seen over the border a couple of days before
http://birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?mode=search&sp=30184&rty=0&r=1&v=0&off=321976
this does look good for RLB, well except for the tale pattern which does not look quite right, but how variable is this feature, I've dug through Raptors Of The World (Ferguson-Lees) and Raptors of Europe and the Middle East (Forsman) and BWP but they do not mention any variation in tail pattern although photos in Forsman do show some variation
enlargment of the flying photo does seem to suggest rather thick legs ie feathered
the point about approaching it so close is interesting as I've always thought that RLB is like other arctic species ie Phalaropes that are very approachable
saying all that although I've seen lots of Buteo spp my experience of RLB is very limited
I'd go for it being a RLB
I'd be interested to hear any other comments
I agree Martyn. I personally have found rough leg's to be much more confiding than common buzzards. I saw one on fence post next to a lane in Germany a few years ago, initially from some distance, and was pretty thrilled. It then stayed there as I approached, and pretty much walked past it.
Post a Comment