PaulCountyDurham
Well-known member
Been to Bollihope Burn today … 1st visit.
Im far from a bird watcher and seen numerous birds of prey when walking various places but honestly was astounded see the bird i saw today and the size of it .
We had walked past caravan parks and cabins and followed river and then reached large rock face on left (before reach the walls either side that used as climbing walls) It was perched in tree with lighter coloured head (not white) and as I alerted my partner it flew through tree opening and back down path we had walked up and its wing span was genuinely as wide as the path .
Without doubt biggest bird i have ever seen and was convinced could only be eagle due to sheer size of it … other birds like kite ive seen with large wing span but the torso of this was larger than those i believe.
I have almost zero knowledge of areas various birds of prey located or spotted so googled to see if could be eagle in that area and pleasantly surprised with various tales and sightings and thought would go to trouble of sharing with you
Still shocked and surprised …. But made my day 😊
There was one spotted in the same area about a couple of months back and photographed. Apparently a young bird from a project in south-east Scotland. From what I have read, north-east England is not much in terms of distance for a stray eagle.
Bollihope Burn and around that area is my usual bird watching haunt in spring and summer. I was over there last weekend. I saw a bird that certainly wasn't a Red Kite. It looked much bigger than a buzzard and where I live in County Durham I see buzzards regular and so I have a decent idea of size. I was stood pretty much where you were and the bird would have been over Crawleyside Bank. It's not really Red Kite territory by the way, they tend to like it over towards Muggleswick and there you're not far from the Gateshead area where there are decent numbers of them. It's not really a Buzzard area either.
I couldn't be certain though in truth.
The other thing I would say is that it's surprising how big these birds are when they're much closer to you, even a female kestrel appears much larger when she opens her wings when you're closer to the bird. I know that's an obvious thing to say but I was once stood next to a tree with a female kestrel the other side although obscured from my view. The bird realised I was there, flew out of the tree and I was amazed at the wing span to the point where I assumed the bird was something other than a kestrel initially.