Immature Snake Eagle: Brown or Black-chested Kenya Summer (1 Viewer)

Good morning. This should be easy enough, but I am stuck and would love to know for sure. Anyone positive ?
Thank you in advance, Ugolino

Hi Ugolino
looks like your bird has the same age as this one
http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/black-breasted-snake-eagle-photo-8916.html
big drops in second calendar year Black-chested appear where these birds will be all white when older. The inner moulted primaries have the typical pattern of ad Black-chested already. I had the same problem with such a bird in this thread
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=200081

I agree with Tom, the new inner primary makes this bird a Black-chested.
Actually imm Brown snake-eagle is quite different and shouldn't cause any trouble. The real problem with those birds is to eliminate imm Short-toed/Beaudouin's.

If you have further images of this bird to propose, I would be very gratefull if you could post them on this thread.

Interesting indeed as everything you all said send me back to my original conclusion at the time....It's only recently that I had started doubting it.

I am posting for TIB a photo of same bird after and before take off. I had chosen the "flying off" one as one could see the bird better

I also post a different bird (Photo 3) which I saw this April in Ouganda and that I have identified as Short-toed but now the old thread which you kindly indicated made me have doubt..... if they are so rare...

Finally, I post a photo of a 3rd troublesome bird (Photo 4, also taken this April in Ouganda) which I have called Western Banded after days of being undecided...and probably am wrong about !

All comments appreciated... Apologies for poor quality as I do not seem to get the compression to the max allowed... Is there a trick I am unfamiliar with as it seems to cut in half further any compression already made on Outlook ?

thanks, Ugolino

@ picture 3: the very fine barring on the chest and belly makes this a Beaudouin's Snake Eagle
@ picture 4: good luck for that one! Any other picture available, are there any feathered tarsi visible here?
I am using photoshop, first crop as much as possible only leaving the bird and by saving it using the appropriate jpeg-compression

Thank you Tconzemi, but my East African guide does not list Beaudouin's, and it appears that Beaudouin's is mostly West Afriacan.
could i have seen a vagrant ?

Re the 4th photo, which I call temporarily Western banded, here are 2 close up of same bird...could not make it move and could not get in better position, so they alla re 3/4 views, apologies, but THANK you for your opinion...trying to get them right.

Ugolino

ugolino said:

Thank you Tconzemi, but my East African guide does not list Beaudouin's, and it appears that Beaudouin's is mostly West Afriacan.
could i have seen a vagrant ?

Re the 4th photo, which I call temporarily Western banded, here are 2 close up of same bird...could not make it move and could not get in better position, so they alla re 3/4 views, apologies, but THANK you for your opinion...trying to get them right.

Ugolino

Click to expand...

Africanbirdclub lists BSE as migrant and STE as vagrant
@4 definitely a Snake Eagle with these talons, looks good for Western banded but I am not familiar with that one

Many thanks for the extra images! They will help me in the future.

And Tom is right about your 2 last birds: Beaudouin's (once lumped with Short-toed eagle, that's probably why it's not listed in your field guide) which is indeed a good bird for Uganda; and Western banded snake-eagle (note the very short tarsi and toes, typical of the Banded snake-eagles).