Hello!
Me and my mum saw two mystery raptors this Tuesday 24th January at Kinver Edge, Shropshire, bordering Worcestershire.
They were larger than a sparrow hawk, smaller than a buzzard, and very dark brown, almost black, like burnt toast all over, including their heads. Very sleek and beautiful birds. My mum thinks she saw slightly paler banding on the upper part of the wing on the one we saw in flight.
Scouring our bird books and the web, the closest match I could find is the female Montagu Harrier. But that would be out of season and also very rare even if it was in season, by the sounds of it!
Kinver Edge is in Shropshire, on the border with Worcestershire and is a mix of heathland and woodland, mostly oak and silver birches, surrounded by farmland with smaller fields, good hedges and many trees.
We got fantastic views of each bird, it was as we were driving around Kinver Edge, one was sitting in a low branch in a tree right next to the road bordering a field, then it flew low to a nearby tree, then as we were bemoaning how we saw it too quickly to stop, we saw another only about 20ft along, in a low branch just overhanging the road, and we stopped and had a great long look! We were lucky with no traffic! Sadly we got no photos!
We've never seen anything like them before! Does anyone know what they might have been? Has anyone else seen them?
Me and my mum saw two mystery raptors this Tuesday 24th January at Kinver Edge, Shropshire, bordering Worcestershire.
They were larger than a sparrow hawk, smaller than a buzzard, and very dark brown, almost black, like burnt toast all over, including their heads. Very sleek and beautiful birds. My mum thinks she saw slightly paler banding on the upper part of the wing on the one we saw in flight.
Scouring our bird books and the web, the closest match I could find is the female Montagu Harrier. But that would be out of season and also very rare even if it was in season, by the sounds of it!
Kinver Edge is in Shropshire, on the border with Worcestershire and is a mix of heathland and woodland, mostly oak and silver birches, surrounded by farmland with smaller fields, good hedges and many trees.
We got fantastic views of each bird, it was as we were driving around Kinver Edge, one was sitting in a low branch in a tree right next to the road bordering a field, then it flew low to a nearby tree, then as we were bemoaning how we saw it too quickly to stop, we saw another only about 20ft along, in a low branch just overhanging the road, and we stopped and had a great long look! We were lucky with no traffic! Sadly we got no photos!
We've never seen anything like them before! Does anyone know what they might have been? Has anyone else seen them?