I’m glad to see I’ve found myself tangled by a ‘2 bird theory’ scenario once again! It never dawned on me to consider that this might be the case but it does make much more sense.
My comment about the Buzzard wasn't offering a unified identification.Trying to make a logical progression from what was visible in the flight photo to the perched bird left me unable to come to a definitive conclusion.I was really trying to guess at how Paul ended up with a Steppe Eagle and an upperwing pattern as shown.I was convinced the first flight photo ruled out every possible Steppe Eagle plumage! At a stretch perhaps a dark variant adult Steppe E might remotely fit but even then I think it has too many pale markings on the coverts for this. As John has mentioned the shape of the bird in flight seems all wrong for a large Aquila Eagle.
Besides some sort of Buzzard, I can't think of anything else which could possibly look like the bird in flight although I have considered Booted Eagle or a juv Bonelli's but neither really fit.
Now that John has brought up the concept of 2 different birds, I agree the perched bird best fits a Steppe Eagle; my main concern with the perched bird was that the tarsal feathers look surprisingly pale compared to the rest of the plumage and sparsely streaked.I was wondering if something else was going on here like some sort of hybrid.
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[ Last edited by EricB at 29/05/2011 08:37 ]
