Falcon sp, Elmley NNR, Isle of Sheppey yesterday. (1 Viewer)

[Evan Atkinson]

Hi all, yesterday I observed this falcon at Elmley from the wellmarsh hide. It was a very dark looking bird and I ruled out kestrel and peregrine on size. The bird was about 1km away from me and had its back to me the entire time, I was not able to properly see the head. I took a couple of pictures with my camera and saw they were rather hazy so I went to digiscope the bird through my scope and as I put my phone up to the scope the bird flew off. I noted that it was rather dark underneath but I'm unsure if it was a shadow. A few hours later there was a male red footed falcon at Seasalter which isn't that far away from Elmley. I suspect the bird could have been the red footed falcon but I am going to default it to being a hobby as that is the most likely bird. I will attach a few pictures that I got with my camera but they are from an extreme distance. One is the heavily cropped raw and the other is the JPEG.




Kind regards

Evan

 

[CARERY]

No offence but you can't be serious... There is nothing to work with, sorry.

 

[Richard Prior]

Yes, I’m afraid you can’t default that to Hobby or anything else in this case!

 

[Alexander Stöhr]

Hello Evan,

while I agree with all and surely you, that your bird is unIDable with confidence (and I am not biased by expert comments and likes saying so), I will look at RFF later with your picture in mind and write my thoughts.

Yes, this will not turn this into an IDable picture, and you know isnt meant as an offense, but for me"Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude"

 

[Evan Atkinson]

Thanks all, was definitely a long shot with those photos! Certainly in the scope it was a hobby or something along those lines so will keep it as hobby.

Thanks

 

[TheBlackGrouse]

You saw the flight, did you see anything?

When watching raptors with my 10x42 Leica UHD on a monopod it's possible to identify Hobbies, Kestrels, Peregrines at 2 km by flight. Admittedly, a bit of sun in your back helps a lot and it doesn't work when it's hot.

 

[Evan Atkinson]

You saw the flight, did you see anything?

When watching raptors with my 10x42 Leica UHD on a monopod it's possible to identify Hobbies, Kestrels, Peregrines at 2 km by flight. Admittedly, a bit of sun in your back helps a lot and it doesn't work when it's hot.

I saw the bird fly off, but it flew away from me. Overall it looked rather dark in the underwing but it was such a brief view of it.