Cumbria - A66 near Appleby - smallish raptor? (1 Viewer)

[Joe Glencoe]

Only got a fleeting glance at the underside of this as I was driving and it came from the side of the road and flew in front of me for a few seconds. On the A66 a little east of Appleby. About 6pm.

White or very light grey underside, wings and body, but the wings looked like they had a black border round them. Yellow or orange legs.

Size - hard to say, crow sized perhaps, maybe bigger.

That’s all I’ve got I’m afraid. Looking at images now I wonder if it was a male hen harrier, but I thought they were pretty rare so I’m not really sure what to think.

 

[Butty]

Impossible to identify from this description, I'm afraid. Hen harrier couldn't be ruled out, but - on a poor view - neither could various other things. And judging even just the size of a lone bird is notoriously unreliable.

 

[Joe Glencoe]

Yeah, not much to go on is there! It was more for ideas of what it could have been really, rather than a definitive ID. Cheers.

 

[KenM]

If the border was a contrasting black trailing edge Joe, then there aren’t “many” Bops at Crow size that might fit that description, your hunch may well have been right, perhaps not one for the committee (that wasn’t there) but for your conscience…that was.👍

 

[Dawsy]

Harriers are very distinctively shaped in flight. I would expect anyone used to seeing buzzards, falcons, sparrowhawks etc to notice the long-straight, narrow wings even from brief view of a flying harrier. Did you notice anything about the shape??
It's worth noting that there is perfect habitat along the A66 for hen harriers once you've gone up the hill but they are rare breeders anywhere in England, probably due to persecution.

 

[Joe Glencoe]

It was literally a momentary look as I drove underneath it at 70mph - eyes on the road and all that (mostly!)

 

[Dawsy]

The other crow-sized birds with black and white on the wings around there are lapwings. I've mistaken them for raptors on brief views loads of times and they're very common along the A66 at this time of year.