Well, it won't be a Honey Buzzard, because they've all gone to Africa. A useful way of shortening the list of suspects! Did you get an idea of the actual size?
Hard to be completely sure but I'd say a little smaller than a buzzard. A very dark brown back/top view but with an overall blotchy effect on the underside of the wings, not in patches like the kite. Bulky looking when seen on the ground. Often flies very low to the ground. I've been seeing it or one of them, never more than one at a time, for years.
That they hold their fairly narrow wings in a shallow V shape, and the particular way they sometimes tip from side to side as they hunt fairly low, always says Harrier to me. The narrower wings can make them seem smaller than a Buzzard, but the size is similar. After that it partly comes down to when you see it. It sounds like a Marsh.
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Well, it won't be a Honey Buzzard, because they've all gone to Africa. A useful way of shortening the list of suspects! Did you get an idea of the actual size?
Hi Joe
Hard to be completely sure but I'd say a little smaller than a buzzard. A very dark brown back/top view but with an overall blotchy effect on the underside of the wings, not in patches like the kite. Bulky looking when seen on the ground. Often flies very low to the ground. I've been seeing it or one of them, never more than one at a time, for years.
In the sticks near Peterborough
When are you seeing it Nut, I'd presumed you were talking about back in the summer?
If it's throughout the year , and thinking about where you live then I'd think a Marsh Harrier is the most likely - they often fly low to the ground - have a look here https://www.google.com/search?q=marsh+harrier+underwing&rlz=1C1SVEE_enGB425GB425&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QASTUrqxHcmV7AbU84C4Bw&ved=0CD0QsAQ&biw=910&bih=444
We see them over the grazing marshes between Acle and Gt Yarmouth, and the reedbeds near the Suffolk coast.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks Dove
I think it's probably a female marsh harrier,
I've been aware of it for years but thought it was a hen harrier, then thought it wasn't.
In the sticks near Peterborough
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
That they hold their fairly narrow wings in a shallow V shape, and the particular way they sometimes tip from side to side as they hunt fairly low, always says Harrier to me. The narrower wings can make them seem smaller than a Buzzard, but the size is similar. After that it partly comes down to when you see it. It sounds like a Marsh.
Thanks Joe, I think so too. my neighbour says there are Marsh and Hen harriers about here but I've only seen the one
In the sticks near Peterborough
Saw a huge buzzard over farmland at Brampton near Beccles in North Suffolk this afternoon - it was magnificent.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
In the sticks near Peterborough