A funny looking bird caught our eye recently.
Quite scruffy, its plumage wasn’t immediately definitive, and it was only after we’d eliminated a few options that we came to a final conclusion.
Have a look:
There have been a few relatively easy IDs of late, so expect the next few in the series to be tricky. This one isn’t particularly difficult (I know for a fact that there are two birds that look exactly like the one in the picture and could end up confusing the issue), so take your time and you should get there.
The answer will be revealed in next Friday’s TWIP, so get those bird books out and start paging through…
Good luck!
James, Beats me?
A lesser or a rock Krestel.
Brown eagles are always fun to try and ID especially when the large brown non-breeding migrants are around. This bird is a juvenile African Hawk-Eagle (Aquila spilogaster). The leggings feathered down to the talons rule out the buzzards, goshawks and snake-eagles. The dark brown upperparts and the paler rufous brown underparts point towards the juvenile African Hawk-Eagle.
I think it’s some type of a young eagle, based on its beak and fluffy, feather breast.