Beaten By Bird ID ~ Must Be Obvious . . .

[Goldeneye]

Hi Guys,
this bird has beaten me, I'm far from an expert but looking at it I should have thought a flick through my bird books would make ID easy - but I've failed !

It's a large bird, size and flight action like a good sized raptor which is what I initially thought it was.
Sorry for the poor picture but it was a great distance away.

If anybody knows what it is and can put me out of my misery I'd really appreciate any input
Thanks and regards
Rod

[rossy]

lapwing, rossy.

[rossy]

Originally Posted by Goldeneye

Hi Guys,
this bird has beaten me, I'm far from an expert but looking at it I should have thought a flick through my bird books would make ID easy - but I've failed !

It's a large bird, size and flight action like a good sized raptor which is what I initially thought it was.
Sorry for the poor picture but it was a great distance away.

If anybody knows what it is and can put me out of my misery I'd really appreciate any input
Thanks and regards
Rod

when you have looked in the bird books , it will show the lapwing to have a tuft on its head, which is not shown when the birds in flight, other names are peewit ( to which you may have heard ) and green plover, hope that helps, rossy.

[Goldeneye]

Rossy,
that's fantastic - many thanks indeed.
What's really thrown me as well is the size, when I saw it I thought I'd not seen anything like it before yet I must have seen plenty of Lapwings.

You've finally given me some peace of mind - many thanks indeed
Regards
Rod

[faz]

as rossy says a lapwing

welcome to WAB goldeneye

[diggleken]

Yes, Lapwing, something to think of with it (and all birds ) is the way they fly besides appearance - I always think Lapwings should be called flapwings .................
And of course the call is a highpitched 'peewit'.
Watch out for the white rump too, which is a good easy to see feature for its size.
They should largely be on territory around now for breeding.
Cheers
Ken

[Goldeneye]

Thanks Faz, really appreciate it and the welcome.
I've just been looking at some in flight images on Google and it's so different in flight to stationary (as depicted in all my bird books)

It still seems strange that I haven't seen such a striking bird in flight before, I live on the Lincolnshire coast so should have seen plenty I guess
Regards
Rod