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Discussion of other Raptor species; their anatomy, biology, ecology, etc.
Topic Started: Sep 16 2007, 11:04 AM (18,132 Views)
ostrich2
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Petra posted this striking picture of a raptor today in chat:

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I thought this might be a fun one to practice trying to id. It certainly has some very distinctive features:

- the remarkable coffee brown plumage on the body contrasted with the rather light colored feathers with black bands on the ends of the primaries
- a very long tail with black bands on the tail as well
- the very dark colored eyes

This bird is clearly quite large as well.

Note: Petra lives in Denmark I think it is, so this could very well not be a NA species.
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Raptorman
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Paula eaglet momster
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Petra lives in Holland :)
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Paula eaglet momster
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I went on an osprey banding trip this past June at Jug Bay Wetlands area http://www.pgparks.com/places/parks/jugbay.html in Maryland. We weighed and banded Osprey chicks. Just thought I would share a couple of photos of a crude, but effective method of weighing the chicks. They were quickly placed into a bag, as Bill described earlier, weighed, and removed from the bag. As you can see in the second pic, we generally banded the osprey first and then weighed them.

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ostrich2
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Wow - interesting pictures Paula. Where was the actual osprey nest? Was it on the ground?
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Paula eaglet momster
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Greg Kearns, the park biologist, actually constructed most of the platforms as seen in the picture below. Also, I have included a link to the video I took that day from banding at one of the nests.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5bncYGoCsU

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Raptorman
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Paula eaglet momster
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Here is a description of the platforms -

Along the river, park naturalists set up square boxes atop 10-foot pilings, which are 40 inches wide and 12 inches deep.

Bill, we held the osprey during banding. We tried to do it as quickly as possible. Of course, us humans needed pics. :)

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ostrich2
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Have you worked with osprey much Bill? I gather they are not used at all for falconry and I think you mentioned they have a very jittery temperment so they aren't really too good as educational/public display birds either
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Patti
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Petra's raptor is GORGEOUS!!!! Goodsearch and Google European raptors, or words like that, and we should come up with some ID resources.

Nice osprey information too. I'm way behind here, but look forward to getting back in the swing of things here.

Look what I found looking for Belgium raptors to ID Petra's bird...an African Sea Eagle.
http://users.skynet.be/raptor-center-davidbvb/

Here are some better photos & audio track:
http://www.mangoverde.com/birdsound/spec/spec30-36.html

African Fish Eagle, River Eagle --- Haliaeetus vocifer
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Length: 63 - 73 cm (25 - 29 in.)
Wingspan: about 6 ft.
Weight: 3000 g

The ID source used all these different names...???
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Patti
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Petra's bird kind of looks like some Sparrowhawks on one European raptor site.
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Raptorman
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Patti
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Bill, my "first" guess (before doing more searching) is the common (maybe Eurasian) Sparrowhawk--a male juvenile?

Admittedly, the more northern Sparrowhawks seem to have a lot more light & barring on the chest? I read about a different Sparrowhawk that is in Greece and Turkey, I think, and others, but can't locate pix of these. There is a Rufous-chested Sparrowhawk in Africa, but I don't think the PINE TREE fits Africa, so can't be that. Plus no pix of the Rufous.

All the pix I found of Eurasian Sparrowhawks showed yellow or red eyes, but I'm taking a chance that the juveniles have dark eyes. Petra's bird does appear to have dark eyes--so that is throwing me.

Sparrowhawks appear to be very common, so I guess this--and the Petra bird upper beak had some light at top and dark bottom, like all the Sparrowhawks seemed to show. Longer tails as well.

Saw a lot of Hen Harriers, but the tail and beaks seemed wrong--facial markings, too.

Some PRETTY buzzards in Europe, Asia & Africa.

Bill, is it ok if I post some helpful online bird guides in this thread--one is world birds, but a few are for Europe?
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Nancy
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Raptorman,Oct 25 2007
12:40 PM
Bea and Nancy: I did a search of the forum using the key words "Hawk Hill" and got no results. I then used "banding" and got many pages of results but didn't see anything applicable.

I still believe the fastest method would be to check your photo host site like photobucket and repost the photos or check your own computer for the photos. Bill :D

Thanks Bea and Bill for checking on the photos for me of my experience last year on Hawk Hill. I did go back to photobucket, but I think they may have been deleted :( I was going through some things and must of sent them out in space. Well I'm still waiting for the ones that were taken recently.
Checked the GGRO site and they had some exciting news! They trapped and banded a juvenile Eurasian Kestrel. They think it may be the first documented appearance in California! For more info checkout the web site.

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ostrich2
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I'm thinking that bird would be too large for a sparrowhawk - the bird in the picture certainly seems to be very large - at least eagle sized. The Eurasian sparrowhawk is listed as 35-41cm in length which is pretty small.
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