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Although many of them are large raptors can be tricky to identify especially the brown ones and the young ones. If you have a photo of a raptore which you battle to identify, this is the place to post it.

Remember only Raptors here. If you need a LBJ identified go here and for all other birds you can go here.

I have many, many brown ones and this is the first of them. Seen on the Schoemanskloof Road between Machadodorp and Nelspruit on the 6th January. I think it might be a Forest Buzzard.

And some more seen on the road between Malelane Gate and Afsaal....sorry but these brown ones really gets me confused...Im not sure as it could be Steppe, Lesser Spotted, Wahlbergs Eagle etc....they all look the same to me





And this is only from the first day

2 Mystery birds from my December 08 holiday:

Wish photos were better quality, but these are all I have

First two photo's taken at Mkuze in what I would describe mixed Acacia forest and grass savannah. The bird appears to be a Steppe/Forest Buzzard (I have yet to tell the diff with confidence), but somehow its proportions seemed to be wrong. At the time the head appeared to be too small for the body. The bird sat on the branch for a long time appearing to be scanning the ground. Not much to go on, but I would like to hear any suggestions. (Honey Buzzard???!)

Second bird was photographed early morning at Bonamanzi. In front of staff accomodation. This in an area I think they call Sand Forest. It was spotted at the birdbath and was quite at ease spending a lot of time before it flew off. NO White markings on the tail at all! My gut feel is that it is too big for little sparrowhawk, but too small for African Goshawk (SHIKRA????)

@mgoddard:
Your first bird is an interesting one. It certainly has the makings of a Forest Buzzard but these birds are frighteningly difficult to seperate from Steppe Buzzard. The reason I'm saying it has the makings of Forest Buzzard is because it does appear light enough and I can't make out any horizontal barring on the underparts towards the legs. Also the habitat seems good.

However, one absolute clincher would be the length of the wing and in your pic of the bird perched it does seem as if the wing extend well past the base of the tail. Forest Buzzards have very short wings that, in rest, typically extend only to the base of the tail or sometimes just a little bit longer but never more than a third of the tail length. You could post a higher resolution crop of the tail of that bird perhaps? In a higher resolution image I think it will be clear.

Your second post contains two different birds. The first one is an Aquila eagle but it's hard to say which one as not many ID features are visible. You can rule out Steppe Eagle based on the extent of the gape and you can rule out Lesser Spotted Eagle based on the relative bagginess of the feathering around the tarsus. It's not nearly as baggy as Booted Eagle or Steppe Eagle would have had but it's certainly not as narrow as that of Lesser Spotted Eagle. It pretty much leaves you with Tawny Eagle and Wahlberg's Eagle. I'm tempted to think that it's the latter but I'm hesitant to really make a call.

The second bird in your second post is a Steppe Buzzard. The unfeathered tarsus immediately rules out and Aquila eagle.

@stefans:
Your first bird is a classical Steppe Buzzard. That horizontal demarcation on the breast should be your first and strongest hint. The yellow cere and dark eye in itself is already enough to rule out Honey-Buzzard but the overall shape is just wrong as well. Honey-Buzzard has a very slender head, reminding of a pigeon's head almost.

Your second bird looks bang on the button for Little Sparrowhawk but it bothers me if you're saying that there were no white on the tail. I seem to be making out some white on the tail though. Are you sure there were no white or could you have missed it perhaps?

The yellow cere and yellow eye rings are classical features of Little Spar and Shikra would have had a red eye. Also, the rufous wash on the flanks is typical of Little Spar.

Remember that size can be very misleading if you don't have much to compare the bird against. A bird on the ground often looks a bit bigger than a bird in the tree.

Deefstes
Thanks for feedback. I gave up on these two, but can add the following.

The sparrowhawk definitely did not show any white markings on the tail as it flew away (I was wishing for it to take flight so that I could look for these markings) However you are right -there was some white showing on the back/folded wings(?) as the bird sat on the ground.

Would you say that the red eye of Shikra is red like a Red-eye Dove's (Which unless you get the light right can appear pretty black!) or is it more pronounced. I do not know this bird at all.

You also make a very valid point that sizing a bird is not always as easy as one would expect

Happy birding!

Thank you deefstes..I hope this pic will be more helpful. I have cropped it quite a bit and saved it as 1080dpi.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3517/320 ... edcb_o.jpg

@Mgoddard:
OK thanks, that picture certainly helps to nail the ID and I'm afraid but your bird is a Steppe Buzzard. You can see that the left wing extends pretty much as far as the tip of the tail. You would never see this on Forest Buzzard.

Just as an aside, and unrelated to birding, you saved the image as 1080dpi but that really isn't what gives it higher resolution. The dpi value of an image has no meaning when you view the image on a computer screen, it is only significant when you print the image on paper.

What is more important is that you saved the image at 811x855 pixels. That is what determine how big it will show up on my screen. Your previous version of the same image was 458x500 pixels which is a little over 1/4 the size of this one but it contained a much wider field of view. That is why this one is providing details.

@stefans:
Here is an annotated version of your image. I've pointed out where I think I can see white on the tail.


Either way, I would say the other features point so overwhelmingly to Little Sparrowhawk that I'm willing to ignore the apparent absence oif white on the tail

As for the red eye of Shikra, yes it can appear dark if the sun does not catch it but it's much redder than that of Red-eyed Dove for instance. When the sun catches it nicely it's actually a rather striking red. Shikra would never show that yellow ring around the eye though.

Thanks again, that is why I find it so difficult to ID these brown ones. If pic 1 & 2 is Steppe Buzzard and pic 4 is also one its hard to believe as the first one looks a lot lighter than the 4th

Hi deefstes,
Thank you for taking the time to post such detailed replies. I am certainly learning a lot from it!

Agree 100% with you JenB. Its always nice to get such detailed replies and hopefully I can remember all that is said.

This one was seen on the S28 on January 07. Is it an Immature Martial Eagle or African Crowned Eagle??

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3529/320 ... 1ac4a9.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3397/320 ... ba5b48.jpg

African Crowned-Eagle is not a common bird in Kruger at all. It is essentially a forest bird and there is very little (if any) suitable habitat for them in Kruger. They have been seen in Kruger though because they do wander outside of forests to hunt but by and large it is not a bird you typically expect to see in Kruger.

Other than that, the Crowned Eagle can also be ruled out on the white leg feathering (which would be barred in Crowned Eagle).

So Im waiting for confirmation on the bird in my second post...Wahlbergs or Tawny??

How about this one...another Steppe?? There were just so many brown ones its unbelievable...

Brown Bird

Another Brown Bird

As I said, I'm not going to make a call on that one. Maybe this is one of those that you'll just have to let go. Not all birds are identifiable, much less if you have only a single image in which the ID features aren't visible.


Is this one bird or two birds? Either way, it looks like the same species. But I'm not going to tell you just yet I'll leave it to you to at least narrow it down a bit more. You're guessing that it could be "another Steppe", based on what? The fact that it's brown?

Sure,your bird is brown and it's obviously a big raptor. There aren't really that many brown birds of prey and they pretty much come from only two families (broadly speaking), Eagles and Buzzards. So first tell me, do you think your bird is an Eagle or a Buzzard? Why?

PS - Don't you rather want to embed your pictures in your posts? It makes it easier for us to view them, not having to navigate to another page to see the image? All you need to do is put {img} before the URL and {/img} after the URL. Just replace the curly brackets with square brackets, I used curlies so that this post won't be formatted as if it's a picture.

First of all I thought by making a link you get a bigger picture of the bird..but will now embed them in my post.




Deefstes lets see why I get so confused and why I question the ID’s

Bird No. 1 above: Yellow Billed Kite or Tawny Eagle??

I see an all yellow bill – not Tawny
The gape reaches below the eye – seen in Tawny
I can also see some spots on the back – Not shown in my Sasol for either Tawny or Yellow Billed Kite
The tail looks short and not deeply forked as explained for YB Kite

Also because of the all yellow bill it cant be:
Steppe Eagle
Walhberg’s Eagle or
Steppe Buzzard



Bird No. 2 above:

European Honey Buzzard / Wahlberg’s Eagle or Tawny Eagle

The gape reaches below mid eye - all
Bill Yellow with black tip - all
The tail looks long and square – maybe Honey Buzzard
It does not look like the legs are covered in feathers – Honey Buzzard, but not Tawny or Wahlberg’s




Bird No. 3 above:

Bill and gape looks the same as bird No. 2 above
Legs look like they could be covered with feathers?
The overall color looks more mottled (lighter than bird no. 2)


What am I missing??