Bonelli's or booted eagle? (1 Viewer)

[AntonBE]

Hi all, two friends and I saw this bird in Monfrague National Park, Extremadura this summer (July 15th). We identified it as a dark morph booted eagle at first, but upon looking at the picture again noticed a few identication points pointing to a potential immature Bonelli's; there seems to be a quite large black carpal patch (though that might be the bad quality of the picture), a bit of a black tail-band, and the neck looks long for booted. It is definitely a very "orange" bird, even though this doesn't show well on the pictures.

I tried getting the picture to show as much detail as possible by making it a bit lighter, but it still isn't very clear... Any help identifying this bird would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

 

[tconzemi]

Dark Booted by heavy barring visible on inner primaries

 

[Simon Wates]

Agree with Tom of course, but I'd like to chip in. Apart from the commoner light morph and dark morph birds, "Intermediate" type Booteds often occur in other shades, from light almost sandy birds through to darker richly orangey ones (almost like juv. Pallid Harrier). Here in Sagres we see them almost daily when lots of Booteds are present during autumn migration. Of course they are far less frequent than the standard individuals. The ratio is approx; Light morph - 80%: Dark morph - 20%.

"Intermediate" type birds typically pop up during movements at something like 2 birds in 100 Booteds of all types.