Need help with bird spot

[boston]

Can anyone help, have seen a bird twice now, once in a field sitting on a fence post and now in a tree at the side of the road. Under normal circumstances would say it was a buzzard, except a good 30% bigger and with really white feathered legs, you know the kind of knickers which go right to the feet, so no bare legs. Husband thinks i'm mad and that it has to be a buzzard, but have seen hundreds of the things, even have one that visits our garden and this is definately miles bigger. Please help save my marriage!!!

[Pigeon feather]

It may have been a buzzard still, they can vary in colouring with some individuals showing more white than others, and it may have just been fluffed out due to the cold making it appear bigger, are you sure you get a buzzard visiting your garden and not a sparrowhawk? these are much smaller.

[boston]

positive, really lucky here actually. Have a pair of kestrels that hang about, a sparrowhawk which keeps taking sparrows of my feeder. Missed several really good photos of it sitting on the top of the feeder after a near miss, and a pair of buzzards nearby, one of which takes to the garden for cover when it is being mobed by crows/rooks. When i say bigger i kind of mean taller/longer not wider as such. It's just those knickers, you couldn't see any legs at all. Just really weird

[Picidae]

Bird's posture is always variable and depends on weather, what they are doing, mood etc. Posture then affects the visual size of the bird including height. eg. an alert bird sits up 'taller' for example or stretched forward. They also invariably show feathers down to feet in certain postures - look at this Buzzard below:

Galleriet - Netfugl.dk

Perhaps you could help narrowing it down - Accipiters, Falcons and buteos are very different - if you watch it fly. Some plumage details might be helpful too but at this point, agree with Pigeon Feather, no reason to say it's not a Common Buzzard that you are seeing.

[boston]

ok, so popular opinion is that it was a buzzard, and i'm washing his car! but, for arguments sake, is there anything else it could possibly have been that might fulfill the white knicker thing, feathers to the ankle that is.

[Picidae]

Female Sparrowhawk (can look almost Buzzard sized bearing in mind too, size is difficult to judge accurately when you are looking at a lone bird)

Female Sprawk
Galleriet - Netfugl.dk

Female Goshawk may be a possibility - Cold weather can push them out of their normal hunting grounds

Tooth and Claw image library