Weird day - eagle or buzzard

Kinda a weird day today.

1. I was checking out one of my 12v lights (contained upright lantern) which was not working. Thought the connection had become loose (not the first time) then thought, the shade looks a little dark - has the bulb gone. After a struggle got the top off - and discovered the whole interior was filled with an ants nest. After removing it - replaced the bulb and it worked fine.

2. I was disappointed on my trip to Scotland not to see any eagles - the biggest bird of prey I saw was a pair of buzzards in Kintyre. Today whilst adding some photos to my log of the trip - I was looking at my lake district photos of the fells - deciding which one to use - when in one of them I saw the clear shape of a very large bird of prey. I hadn't seen it when taking the photo - but unless I mistake my guess - this is an eagle - asked the RSPB to check. What do you think - the photo has been cropped vertically - but otherwise is unzoomed, unenhanced or twiddled with - though not as clear as the original using photobucket.



[ 01. July 2007, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: Fran ]

 

hi Fran: I somehow think that it is not an eagle because of the shape of the wings and also for the landscape which doesn't look that elevated.
But this is totally my opinion and could very well be wrong...
I have seen eagles occasionally in Italy and you recognize them also because their flight is somehow heavier because they are big...
It would be interesting to hear some other opinion.

 

Fran it is quiet difficult to say either way.We have been to Scotland countless times and have only seen Eagles on a few occassions.When we have seen them they have been quite high up in the sky that is why they are hard to identify even with bonoculars or telescope.When they are high up the light levels don't help either.

Eagles are so much larger than Buzzards,with a length of 29-33"{75-85cm} and a wingspan of 74-86"{190-220cm} so they are quite large.

They have a wedge shaped tail and when the wings are extended they have long fingers whereas a Buzzard only has smallish fingers...

Looking at your photo,with the height the bird is from the ground I would say it is a Buzzard.

There are Eagles in the Lake District in the Haweswater area so if you had been in that area you would most likely to have had a better chance of seeing them...

Hope this information helps...

 

Perhaps its a cross between an eagle and a buzzard, would that be a beagle :D
Sorry I'm not good at ID ing birds.

 

Probably a Buzzard but just too far away to ID positively. They call Buzzards tourist Eagles in Scotland anyway so in one respect you could say....

 

So the concensus is a buzzard - I'll let you know what the RSPB says. They have the original picture which is a little clearer - and confirm there is a male eagle in the Lakes as Kandyfloss says. The land beneath is one side of Souther Fell, and over to the left out of shot is the craggy height of Blencathra.

Having seen a pair of buzzards in Kintyre, which I watched for some time with binoculars, I'm not so sure. But eagle or buzzard, I loved finding that I'd got a shot by accident. I tried to photograph the buzzards in Kintyre, but couldn't get them identifiably in shot.

 

As an adendum - as photobucket resized the cropped picture. Herewith a small crop of the picture - which hopefully it hasn't downsized.

 

fran can you send me the original photo so that we can blow it up and see if we can identify it for you.The tail on the above photo does look wedge shaped.Thankyou

 

By all means, pm me your e-mail address and I'll send you the original. I have tried to enlarge - but it just lost focus. Remember most of the picture is of a lakeland fell though - which was what I was taking.