Black Kite or Buzzard? (1 Viewer)

[Colin]

Well, I was right in that it wasn't a Common Buzzard. I think that I will have to assume Eddies title of Worlds Worst Birder :-C . Seriously, this has been an interesting thread and along with the Iceland Kite and the southern England Black/Red Kite, is another one of the fascinating raptor discussions.

Colin

:-C

 

[Stringer]

many thanks.....i learned a lot!

 

[HH75]

Hi all,
I know that I'm too late again,but I had a look at the first photo before reading any comments and straight away thought that it WASN'T a Black Kite,but most probably a dark Honey Buzzard.
Black Kites should have 6 "fingers" on the spread wing:this bird has 5 at best.Also,the inner secondaries are too pale for Black Kite.
Common Buzzard and(to a lesser extent)Rough-legged can be ruled out by the proportions,also both would hold their wings in a "V" when soaring.
It looks most like a Honey Buzzard to me,but I haven't seen many of these and none since Sep.99.
Harry H

 

[Ashley beolens]

Joining in a bit late, but for what its worth, I don't think its black kite, however I am still to be convinced it is Honey buzzard. For me the head does not look as small as I would expect, matbe just the angles of the photo, but the tail looks way too flat, honey buzzard should still have the rounded tail, shouldn't it? To be honest I don't like giving oppinions of photos as unclear as these (no offence to the photographer, but it seems not to have picked up any of the main ID features clearly enough to eleminate other species). That said the perched bird in the second set of photos does look like honey buzzard.

Malky, all the books I have looked at show black kite as having a 6 finger spread (collins shows it quite clearly) the sixth finger is small but still clearly visable on black kite when in flight.

 

[Goshawk]

Red Kite v Black Kite fingers. Red's have 5 Blacks have 6. I have many books that show this including the Handbook of Bird Identification by Mark Beaman and Steve Madge as well as Birds of Prey by Benny Gensbol to name but two.

In my opinion this is definately not a Black Kite. The whole jizz of the bird is wrong.

I have a slight problem with this bird though. It seems like it is being settled on as a juv H.B, and it probably is, but I have my doubts. Juv's usually have shorter tails and, in my opinion, wouldn't appear so long as shown in the very first photo. Secondly all the Juv H.B's I have seen don't have such a distinct black edge to the rear of the underwing as the underwing patterns usually are more uniform in marking, whereas I would expect a C.Buzzard to look like that in a dark morfe bird.

The darkness extending back into the wing from the fingers tends to sway in the favour of H.Buzzard but I have seen dark morph C Buzzards look similar. Also you mention the lack of "V" in the wing in flight. I have seen many C Buzzards soar flat winged and I suspect so have most of you. The three flight photo's have all stages of wing shape but none of them show, what I term the pushed forward look. By that I mean that the wing doesn't take on the "w" shape at the front. Something the H.Buzzard usually shows when gliding plus I would expect the "S" shape to show more on a H.B Juv at the rear edge of the wing. There is a slight "V" in the wing on one shot but a bow on the other (but the bird could be in mid flap on this shot).

What do I think this bird is. Well, I have confused myself so I don't know about you lot. I still feel, and I know I could be off the mark here, that it is a dark morfe C Buzzard, but don't shout at me if i'm wrong.

 

[Michael Frankis]

I've never trusted all this about Raptor X 'should' have y or z fingers showing . . .

Think about it - when a raptor is perched, with its wing closed, it has NO 'fingers' discretely visible separate from the rest of the wing.

With its wing slightly open, say when perched and preening, or in flight stooping, one or more of the outermost primaries start to become discretely visible as fingers.

With the wing more open but still not fully so, e.g. in a shallow glide, more will be visible.

Only with the wing fully extended, usually in soaring, can one state there is a maximum number of fingers which can be shown, equal to the total number of notched primaries.

So Raptor X can be stated, in certain conditions, to show a maximum of y or z fingers. In different attitudes, it may also show any or all numbers less than that.

The number of fingers visible also depends on the angle the photo is taken from - line all the spread fingers up, and they'll look like one. Or two, or three, etc, if they are oartly but not all lined up.

So each photo has to be examined not just for how many fingers show, but also a (difficult) judgement made as to the activity (soaring, gliding, etc), how much the wing is bent at the carpal joint, etc, and the angle of the bird, before one can state whether the bird at that moment is showing its full potential number of fingers or not.

Michael

 

[Goshawk]

If you go to page 55 of my Collins Bird of Prey book, by Benny Gensbol, you will have a perfect photo of a Honey Buzzard in gliding mode with all 5 fingers spread out beautifully

 

[Ashley beolens]

I mentioned collins as it is the only book I have with me at work, But I can't see the sixth finger you talk about. All the photos I have found on the web are of birds with 5 fingers or the fingers are closed. Not that its very easy to find many.
You will obviously get birds that have a primary feather missing giving them less. I'm sorry if you don't feel that drawings are good enough to use as ID (even though they are far better than pictures due to the picture being of an individual bird, not drawn from many to give the overall appearance of the bird).

I did however find another possible raptor, (one I know very little about) Steppe buzzard, they appear to have the dark trailing edges and small looking head with long tail.

This is only of anyuse when the bird is soaring as Micael states but as that is when it is usually used I think thats the point.

 

[Michael Frankis]

Yeah, sure, but I bet it wouldn't be difficult to find other photos with HBs showing four, or three, or two . . .

Michael

 

[Ashley beolens]

yes It would be but never 6!

Sorry that last post seemed a bit sarcastic

 

[cuddy]

Good thread this, i think these sort of discussions can be very informative to the average birder, and help us gain the expereince to observe in finer detail out in the field.

Well done everyone , and thanks for your insight.

Cuddy

 

[Charles Harper]

Yes indeed, Ashley-- no photographer should print such inconclusive photographs. The negatives should have been destroyed immediately as soon as he had seen what he had done!

Great discussion, thank you very much, gentlemen!

 

[Ashley beolens]

I didn't mean the photos were not good, just make ID a bit tricky, hey I haven't even attempted flying birds yet so I can't critisise. What I meant was its very easy to be wrong with this sort of photo, which shows up how bad some of my ID skills are, and we can never really reach a conclusion, which frustrates me.

Well I aim to be seeing Black kite in the morning so I'll be ale to compare directly.

 

[CJW]

Just to clarify, Ashley and Goshawk.
My first posting and a subsequent one by Harry Hussey said that it was a dark phase Honey Buzzard. We didn't say it was a juvenile. Therefore the 'arguments' about the bird's tail proportions and the extent of the black trailing edge to the secondaries, are largely irrelevant. Reference to plate 9 of the old classic, 'Flight Identification of European Raptors' shows a very similar dark bird. I have seen many thousands of Honey Buzzards, Common Buzzards and Black Kites and I'm sticking with Dark-phase adult/sub-adult Honey Buzzard, NOT juvenile.

 

[stevo]

I know it`s a bit late but I think it`s a(dark phase) Honey buzzard to,looking at the photo of it perched it shows the typical H Buzzard head shape.Also theres far to much white on the underwings.On Black Kite there is a whitish primary patch,this does not extend to the secondaries.

 

[wizard]

I am also sticking with a Buzzard, all the kites i see dont look like this one
good to get everyone scratching their heads & chating though, nice pics

have fun

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

Definitely male Honey Buzzard.
I've spent hours watching the antics of two birds in this "purple" plumage in the same valley. S.J. Roberts, Iolo Williams et al * would instantly i.d. this!
Birds of this type may have been filmed and broadcast on S4C two or three years ago!



* Breeding European Honey-buzzards in Britain S. J. Roberts, J. M. S. Lewis and I. T. Williams. British Birds July 1999.

 

[wpercy]

Probably a little late,....Black Kite.
Wayne.

 

[Edward woodwood]

aaahhh HBs again!!!

don't fancy this one Wayne?

 

[logos]

None of the above.

Does Nigel Blake have an alibi?

Spud