Another bird ID request

[~T~]

Originally Posted by poschiavanus

Some years ago I was staying with friends on Kintyre: a buzzard spent about 15 minutes every morning hovering over part of the rough of the 1st hole of the golf course outside their house. I wouldn't say that it looked terribly elegant: it clearly needed the sea breeze to hold position.

Obviously it was worth it for mice and voles, it used to make one or two stoops in this breakfast session.

The ones I saw had no help from thermals or anything as there was pretty much no wind so they did it with huge flapping wingbeats, must have used a lot of energy to do.

Originally Posted by Dogghound

Its unlikely that they were rough-legged buzzards in Germany during the summer, they breed in Scandinavia, northern Russia, Siberia etc. I am afraid buzzard identification is much more more awkward than base colour and hovering behaviour.

Ahh well fair enough. I had never seen so many large buzzards in the one place doing the same behaviour but then again it was at a music festival and I was drunk 99% of the time so I'll take your word for it I wish I had got some pics of them as they were quite close and always there.

[Brian_G]

Originally Posted by poschiavanus

Some years ago I was staying with friends on Kintyre: a buzzard spent about 15 minutes every morning hovering over part of the rough of the 1st hole of the golf course outside their house. I wouldn't say that it looked terribly elegant: it clearly needed the sea breeze to hold position.

There was quite a strong, constant sea breeze at the time, and it was continually making adjustments and movements to steady itself.
I'd agree it didn't look very elegant at times, but like most other hovering birds, the head remained absolutely steady throughout.
Here's another shot from the sequence when it was making some more extreme attitude corrections:



Thank you all for your comments and information.
Regards,
Brian.