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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinthissa" data-source="post: 3604340" data-attributes="member: 120564">I am really happy to have identified this beautiful raptor.  I hadn't considered macrourus at all, and learnt a lot from having to examine the also beautiful Pallids.  The stunning photos on Peter's links are lessons in themselves.  Following them through, I found a great video of "the first pair" of Pallids to have nested in western Europe, this last July in the Netherlands.  So not impossible a Pallid here one day!and the Montagu's ~ I had been waiting for another chance since my first encounter in 2014 July.  On 1st July a magnificent grey raptor with long elastic wings ending in stark black came along the track from the woods, right past the house.  There was a second bird, darker and browny, but the grey one blew my mind.  They were flying low, somehow I didn't notice the underwings.  On 2nd July I saw the grey one briefly, my notes say "tapered to black tips, buoyant flight".  It was an emphatic grey, nothing pallid about it.  Also in July, the same kind of raptor but browny with a lot of dark on pale patterning on the underwings, together with another bird of an intense warm colour (like the op bird) burst out from the top oaks.  I saw these two raptors through glasses and remember exclaiming, "so few fingers!".  Once more, again in July, I was setting up the slope to look for the wasps' nest that was attracting the Honeys, when a raptor rose up before me, I saw a lot of patterning under but it was not at all the Honey; it was smaller and lighter and slender-winged. that time the camera was in my hand but i was confused and helpless.  So!  finally, 3 years later, I see this kind of raptor again, and however blurry the images captured in those few seconds, enough to identify not only a Montagu's harrier, but a juvenile.the question uppermost in my mind now is, why all these changes in iris colour?</blockquote>

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