Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Hen Harrier

Juvenile male Hen Harrier, Ouse Washes RSPB, 30th October 2013 © Garth Peacock
In the late afternoon sun when the light was on the wane but a consolation for the Northern Harrier that did not come close enough for better shots than my last visit.
Note - for those interested, I originally posted this as a female until kindly corrected by James Hanlon. His interesting identification pointers are as follows.
'It is aged primarily by the pale tips to the greater coverts but the warm buff ground colour to the underparts, the rather uniformly dark ear coverts, the narrower streaking on the belly (than the breast) and the appearance of fresh flight feathers of a seemingly single age class (a bit hard to see admitedly) are other good pointers. The yellow eye indicates it is a male; the dark eye of juv females becomes paler with age.' JH

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