Rough-legged Buzzard? Latvia. (1 Viewer)

Nutcracker said:

I'm thinking most if not all the sequences show Common Buzzard; I don't see any dark carpal patch or white tail base on any of them.

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Nutcracker said:

I'm thinking most if not all the sequences show Common Buzzard; I don't see any dark carpal patch or white tail base on any of them.

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andyadcock said:

I agree but have never seen a CB hover so much


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Foxy said:

Common Buzzards hover more than field guides might suggest and I think it is an overrated feature for differentiating Common and Rough-legged Buzzards

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Valéry Schollaert said:

In many areas they hover most the time almost like kestrels, elsewhere they do rarely; I guess it depend of poles available or just local "habits" (see how cultural differences exist in chimps - Jane Goodall - why not in buzzards?). Loving in western Belgium, I had never seen a Common Buzzard hovering in 1988 when I visit Vosges (East France) first time, so when I saw them doing so daily, I tried to convince me it was another species... but they were not!
I fully agree that it is not a feature to differentiate those two species.[/QUOTE]


I never said it was a diagnostic feature and would never make an ID based on this alone, this is what I said 'Hovering a lot which is good for RlB but hard to see any plumage details. I use it as an indicator only, to make me look more closely.

On my local patch in Russia, we have both species on open, setaside land and I've literally never, seen CB hover there.


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andyadcock said:

Valéry Schollaert said:

In many areas they hover most the time almost like kestrels, elsewhere they do rarely; I guess it depend of poles available or just local "habits" (see how cultural differences exist in chimps - Jane Goodall - why not in buzzards?). Loving in western Belgium, I had never seen a Common Buzzard hovering in 1988 when I visit Vosges (East France) first time, so when I saw them doing so daily, I tried to convince me it was another species... but they were not!
I fully agree that it is not a feature to differentiate those two species.[/QUOTE]


I never said it was a diagnostic feature and would never make an ID based on this alone, this is what I said 'Hovering a lot which is good for RlB but hard to see any plumage details. I use it as an indicator only, to make me look more closely.

On my local patch in Russia, we have both species on open, setaside land and I've literally never, seen CB hover there.


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I understood that, but unless you know the local specificity by experience as you explain in your local patch, in an unknown place, I would not use it even as indicator. In some places, Common Buzzards do hover most of the time. The local differences are amazing. I've never seen that in years of birding in Hainaut, Belgium, but I see it in Eastern Belgium at every visit... this is 150km apart, no more.

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