frogmouth71
Member
This afternoon I was out at a reservoir just up the road from my house.
It's right on the edge of Brisbane Forest Park so gives on to the D'Aguilar ranges, a lot of forest and a lot of hills.
I was there because I've been watching a white-bellied sea-eagle which hangs around there.
While the sea-eagle was in a tree about 4-500m across the water I scanned along the shoreline and saw a large raptor flying low down.
From the size of it I thought it must be a wedge-tailed eagle but thought I would run it past the forum.
The bird was very large, flying low down to the water with slow wing beats. When it was gliding it held its wings up in a V.
The overall colour appeared to be a chestnut brown with a lighter-coloured band on the tail.
I saw the tail as it came in to the perch and it flared large and fan-shaped as opposed to the wedge shape you'd see in normal flight.
I can't recall any white patches on the wings as you'd expect to see with a black-breasted buzzard.
The only thing that's stopped me calling it for a wedge-tail is the tail shape. Would an eagle's tail flare like that just as it came up to the perch?
The sea eagle must have been aware of it as it was no more than 200m away but didn't seem to be too bothered.
Grateful for any opinions
Ben
It's right on the edge of Brisbane Forest Park so gives on to the D'Aguilar ranges, a lot of forest and a lot of hills.
I was there because I've been watching a white-bellied sea-eagle which hangs around there.
While the sea-eagle was in a tree about 4-500m across the water I scanned along the shoreline and saw a large raptor flying low down.
From the size of it I thought it must be a wedge-tailed eagle but thought I would run it past the forum.
The bird was very large, flying low down to the water with slow wing beats. When it was gliding it held its wings up in a V.
The overall colour appeared to be a chestnut brown with a lighter-coloured band on the tail.
I saw the tail as it came in to the perch and it flared large and fan-shaped as opposed to the wedge shape you'd see in normal flight.
I can't recall any white patches on the wings as you'd expect to see with a black-breasted buzzard.
The only thing that's stopped me calling it for a wedge-tail is the tail shape. Would an eagle's tail flare like that just as it came up to the perch?
The sea eagle must have been aware of it as it was no more than 200m away but didn't seem to be too bothered.
Grateful for any opinions
Ben