Post by monkeyrepublic on May 29, 2015 19:06:49 GMT
Hello, WABIites.
I've wanted to brush up my bird of prey silhouette IDing skills for a while (having spent the best part of the last year in Germany where they were a daily sighting).
Now, just today, one hovered over my hertfordshire garden for quite a while, but very high up.
Feeble photo below that I started a Flickr account just to embed here! (Hope it works after my last disaster! But, to be honest, it's so feeble it may not help even if you can zoom in... a lot. Got a feeble video too, but one step at a time, eh.)
The bird was larger than a kestrel, with pointed, swept-back wings and a long tail (not forked) that it fanned regularly while hovering.
Having done a quick google search, hobby looks a decent match. But is that really likely in my area? I would have said sparrowhawk was more likely, but I didn't think pointy wings were sparrowhawky.
One final thing: I saw swifts (and a few other birds) in the sky whilst this predator was scoping out the land. Doesn't that make hobby AND sparrowhawk unlikely?!
I've wanted to brush up my bird of prey silhouette IDing skills for a while (having spent the best part of the last year in Germany where they were a daily sighting).
Now, just today, one hovered over my hertfordshire garden for quite a while, but very high up.
Feeble photo below that I started a Flickr account just to embed here! (Hope it works after my last disaster! But, to be honest, it's so feeble it may not help even if you can zoom in... a lot. Got a feeble video too, but one step at a time, eh.)
The bird was larger than a kestrel, with pointed, swept-back wings and a long tail (not forked) that it fanned regularly while hovering.
Having done a quick google search, hobby looks a decent match. But is that really likely in my area? I would have said sparrowhawk was more likely, but I didn't think pointy wings were sparrowhawky.
One final thing: I saw swifts (and a few other birds) in the sky whilst this predator was scoping out the land. Doesn't that make hobby AND sparrowhawk unlikely?!
