Hi Simon, this 2nd bird is a rufous morph by Andrea Corso kind comments, and raised also one chick, together with an odd "common" Buzzard.
I have been in the area not as long as Luis Palma but at least 15 different immature birds are present in the area by my counts, they have been overlooked as you know, but they are also very hard to see and hard to approach, the aerea has an allmost daily use by birdwatchers, and still, no reports on them....
Simon Wates said:
Rui's first photo shows the structure of a Long-legged to me - unless I'm misjudging it ,)
That´s why I have asked for an opinion on Birdforum, not all birders, including the ones who have seen the bird on the field, agree on the ID. I´m somewhere in the middle, at least for the first bird, that shows an obvious patch on the breast like in nominate buteo or vulpinus.
Most of the birds present on the south of Portugal are mostly immatures on their 2 cy, with totally different jizz, and much more eagle like impression with longer tails, and with a slimmer wing effect, than these supposed adult breeders.
Although their breast and head pattern is highly variable, some like the bird on the other post seen in Spain, other with pale creamy heads with dark eye line, but all share, the long head impression with a small triangle on the nape and rectangular angle of the head on that area, dark trousers, orange tinge on belly, long tarsi etc etc.