A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
This bird flying very high has a narrower wing than nearby buzzard and did not have the V feather tails of the red Kite. I post photos of the latter to compare 1) Need the ID 2) Common Buzzard 3) Common Buzzard 4) Red Kite
UK These photos were taken from my back garden in The Chilterns UK
Spotted on Jun 2, 2014
Submitted on Jan 29, 2015
7 Comments
I flew at Booker from 1977 until 2007, plus 1 flight last year.
By the way, we would prefer it if you could use the other species pictures to make separate spottings of the Buzzard and Red Kite and just using links to those spottings in the description, in order the comply with the requirements in our FAQs http://www.projectnoah.org/faq, and then remove them from this spotting. It helps to keep our database tidy. Thanks in advance.
Thank you all for your comments. Mr Malcolm Wilton-Jones. I only went up in a glider once and that was from White Waltham in 1967. The glider was towed up by a winch. Just fantastic . Over my house the gliders were from nearby Booker and towed up by a tug. Many years ago when I was at Stanbridge in Bedfordshire I watch as two hawks shared the same thermal as a glider that was heading towards Dunstable . Many a day I watch Red Kites and buzzards just keep on climbing without a wing beat. Nature is so good at what comes naturally.
Looks like a Harrier to me with the long narrow wings and long tail, the darkish colour suggesting Marsh. Eagles have thicker wings and shorter tails. Lots of juveniles with variable plumage in June.
@ Lenny, confirmed sightings of Black Kites are regularly reported in the UK in June and in 2014 first 2 weeks there were several in South-east England as well as in Scotland. Most of the reports are in a band from Kent, through Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Northumberland, so just to the east of the Chilterns, but also one in Walthamstow, London and another in Nottingham, so they are quite likely in the Chilterns. In recent years Black Kites have been recorded in UK in all months except February but that could change as two have already been reported this year.
I used to fly gliders over the Chilterns regularly and was able to study the Red Kites soaring techniques at close range. I still fly with them in the mountains north of Madrid, where they are joined by Black Kites, various Vultures, various Eagles and White Storks.
Red x Black Kite hybrids have a partially forked tail which this bird obviously lacks.
Thank you . The Black Kite a new spotting . Some migrating Eagles have been spotted over Buckinghamshire, UK in the past
This is probably a Black Kite. It's the only remotely similar bird of prey found in England in June.
Some of the photos are of different species.