A few weeks ago while out one morning near our hyena densite, we spied a bird in a nearby Jackalberry tree. It was clearly a raptor, but a juvenile, and as such, slightly harder to identify with a quick glance. We stopped and trained our binoculars on it, but with lions roaring nearby, we decided to leave the bird for the time being and try for the big cats instead. I snapped a quick few shots for a later reference but promptly forgot about them.
Frontal view of the unknown raptor
A couple of days later, fellow ranger Lucien Beaumont entered the Ranger’s Room after morning game drive and presented us with a photo of a bird which he at first glance had also not been able to identify. He will deny this and claim he knew what it was straight away. Anyway, upon seeing Lucien’s photo, I realized that it was the same bird we had seen a few days previously. This was confirmed when Lucien described where he had seen it, which turned out to be only a few hundred metres from our sighting of the bird.
Anyone’s guess….
Now, the Londolozi Rangers pride themselves in being able to solve any problem and surmount any obstacle, no matter how big (we draw the line at non-Euclidian Geometry). Imagine our horror when it took us at least TWO MINUTES to ID this bird!
We are therefore throwing out the challenge. Who can tell us what bird this is? The Answer will be revealed on the blog next week, and the winner(S) will receive the lifelong respect of the Londolozi Ranging Team.
It’s a Kiwi bird dressed up for Halloween 🙂
This is a red tailed hawk
Juvenile Wahlberg’s Eagle?
My guess is it’s juv Wahlberg’s Eagle, seems a little easy though…
Juvenile African Hawk Eagle
juvenile tawny eagle
Juvenile Tawny or Wahlbergs, great pics, will do some more research.
Juvenille black chested snake eagle?
James Tyrell thought it was an adult House Sparrow
Good one Adam !!!
Juv African Hawk Eagle
Two long minutes well it has to be a Euclidean Geometric Juvenile then ! (do I get spelling respect for Euclidean??)
I agree with Brian, reckon it’s a juvenile African Hawk Eagle. Keep up the great blog!
That is a beautiful brown bird in a tree?
Juvenile African Hawk-Eagle.
I suggest it is an African Hawk Eagle
http://www.mangoverde.com/wbg/picpages/pic30-217-5.html
African Hawk Eagle jr. 🙂
Iren
Immature African Hawk-eagle
I think it is a Tawny Eagle.
GORGEOUS!
Osprey???
May be Giant Eagle Owl or Brown Snake Eagle?
Hi James, not sure time of year correct but juvenile Steppe Eagle? Not sure it’s juvenile Brown Snake Eagle head might be too small? (learned that from James last week …… See James I was listening) Need my Sasol book!!
Well, nothing to loose – my guess is Booted eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus).
awwww Raisa too my guess!
If it isn’t the African Hawk Eagle I would guess the Booted Eagle.
SOOOOOOOOOO….what is it? 🙂
Interested to know who won!
This is certainly the elusive Mozam bird…recognizable by it’s distinctive Mozam-beak. 🙂
A brown snake eagle? Think it’s about time you put us all out of our misery!!
The conclusion of the Londolozi Ranging Team is that the bird is a juvenile African Hawk Eagle. Refer to Sasol’s book “Birds of Prey of Africa and its Islands” for a decent picture of the colour scheme of a young Hawk Eagle and one will see an almost identical one to the bird in the above photos. Given that a pair of adult African Hawk Eagles frequents the area in which the photo was taken, we can conclude that this was one of their offspring. A young hawk eagle was seen in the vicinity not too long after by Ranger Tom Imrie, with plumage far more like that of the adult, so it was most likely the same bird, just further along in it’s development.
The first photo in which the bird is facing the camera is misleading, as the bird does resemble a Wahlberg’s Eagle in posture and feathering. However, the apparent crest that the eagle has in this photo was simply a result of it puffing itself up for warmth on the chilly winter’s morning on which we found it. Winter was also another clue as to the birds identity, as we saw it long after the migratory Wahlberg’s Eagles had all finished breeding and returned North.
Thanks all…it is a lovely bird and hope it finds a mate and stays in the area!