Saturday 17 December 2011
Help needed identifying a bird of prey
I was out in the woods with my very poorly dog on Friday and we stumbled upon a bird of prey eating a bird it had just killed. It was the most fearless bird of prey I have ever encountered as I was only 15 feet away when filming and it showed no signs of leaving its kill until we got within a few feet, only then, and very begrudgingly did it fly to a nearby tree until we retreated.
I was absolutely cursing the diabolical low light performance of the crappy* camcorder I had with me. Had I had my Panasonic, which I did not because accidentally and idiotically I drove over and crushed it a few weeks back, I would have been able to get footage of this incident in a video quality the BBC would have been proud of. This was a very rare chance to get so close to a bird of prey in the wild eating a fresh kill and oh how I regretted not having a better camera to hand.
Despite being virtually right next to this bird of prey I could not positively identify it. It had the face of a buzzard but the body of a hen. It was in my opinion too small to be a buzzard, unless it is a baby or juvenile. The colours of its feathers are also unlike most buzzards I have encountered. Does anyone have an idea what type of bird it is?
It is the top avian predator in the woods and now I know where all the piles of bird feathers are coming from. For weeks now I have been seeing mounds of bird feathers and I feared someone with an airgun had been shooting birds from trees and cats were de-feathering the remains when on the ground. But as this video shows; the culprit for killing the birds was caught in the act with the blood still on its beak.
*The video camera I used and was so disappointed with was a JVC Everio GZ-HM445REK. This camera is full HD and has received some rave reviews, but by HD camcorder standards it was cheap, and only in trying conditions will the shortcomings of a budget camera like this be fully exposed. On a bright sunny day this camcorder would produce clean, clear and crisp images, but in low light conditions………….well the video above is proof enough of its limitations.
If you are contemplating buying a digital camera or camcorder as a gift for Christmas do not get carried away with all the hype such as 598billion pixel resolution or super 1080p HD. The two most important features is firstly the quality of the lens and secondly the size and quality of the sensor. If you look through an Argos catalogue you will see countless cheap cameras and camcorders boasting impressive pixel counts. The pixel count is not what matters, more pixels equate to bigger images, but not clearer sharper images.
I am fairly knowledgeable on this subject. If anyone has any queries please feel free to ask.
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36 comments:
Ive searched it on google and i can positive id it as a hawk
Beijing orders microbloggers to register real names
Buzzard I think but it's got a very dark plumage.
Its a brown bird ?
Don't like brown birds myself, a little shallow for my tastes. A lot of the white birds are noe too but mostly they are confined to the Chav variety.
This topic has reinvigorated my love of bird watching. I find Ashton precinct to be a good spot, between three-thirty and around five o'clock on weekdays.
Was better when I was at college but I'm not too old for juvenile pursuits.
Thanks for the help folks. We have now established that it is a brown hawk, or to be more precise a partially brown hawk which is probably a buzzard.
your welcome glad i could be of assistants
I am certain looking at the pictures on the link it is young golden eagle. It's too dark for a buzzard and to heavy for a kite.
What's the betting 'you know who' from Denton & Reddish was reading this with glee.
That's a long M.E.N. propaganda piece isn't it.
I wish they'd all fuck off back where they belong (Jews, Muslims, Africans, Poles the lot), i.e not on our island.
"I see Israel as a house with many doors, and our job is to give out as many keys as possible,
Then give some keys to the Palestinians whose land was robbed which the UN confirmed approx 50 years ago when the UN told Israel "get back into Israel".
No 1 in the Land Pirates of the world league table.
With a bit of luck Iran holds a solution to the problem of Israels aggression. Has any people ever visited so much hate and suffering upon mankind as that of Israels?
It's a Harris Hawk, obviously an escaped falconer's bird which explains its tameness.
it's a Harris Hawk - obviously an escaped falconer's bird - which would explain its tameness
Well done, it is definitely a Harris Hawk. As they aren't native but are the most common bird used in falconry it must be an escapee.
SS, I'm starting to think you're against the massively disproportionate influence of Zionism in international finance, the media, the entertainment industry and the internet. Me too, I wonder if anyone would care to offer a non-sinister explanation for this situation. Or tell us that it isn't so.
Britain is being manipulated from without and ethnically cleansed from within. Demographics don't lie and if the physically and mentally dormant British masses don't wake up very soon it will be too late to save our nation and people.
Many thanks to Mark Harris for correctly identifying this bird.
I am more of a casual observer than seasoned twitcher and I must confess that until reading your post I had never heard of a Harris's Hawk.
Your suggestion that it as an escaped pet is spot on because I know from experience that buzzards and kestrels will never allow you to get anywhere that close, but this Harris's Hawk is obviously used to human contact and is therefore unafraid.
There is a Harris Hawk for sale at Bird Trader. Only £175 - bargain!
The Guard. I am just a little to say the least. Zionism is deep rooted in our country, the fact that the 1917 Balfour Declaration saw light of day speaks volumes.
Then there was the war against Germany for invading Poland, a country whose affairs have never troubled ours. There was foul play at work there.
The uninformed are the key ingredient for democracy.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/andrew_gwynne/denton_and_reddish#hansard
Well worth a shufty to see how this hypocrite MP spends your money
Scientists say Turin Shroud is real/supernatural.
Tracking ethnic demographics is not an exact science, but it is generally recognized that the ethnic minority population of Britain is approximately 15-25% which equates to roughly 9-14 million out of a population of 60 million. However, the indigenous British population contains many old people (because of our low birth rate), leaving only 50% of the population under 40 years of age, whilst the immigrant/ethnic population tend to be much younger by dint of their higher birth rate, with 75% typically representing those aged under 40.
If we use these statistics, the population of Great Britain under the age of 40 looks like this:
Indigenous Population 2009: 25.5 million.
Non-Indigenous Population 2009: 6.75 million. But the current birth rate differentials cause the indigenous population to decline by approximately 40% per generation, whilst the non-indigenous population has historically doubled per generation, with the Muslim population growing ten times faster than the rest of society.
If we project this data forward to 2030, the figures look like this:
Indigenous Population 2030: 19 million. Non-Indigenous Population 2030: 13.5 million
On top of this we need to take the following into account: Approximately 200,000 Brits emigrate every year.
Approximately 200,000 legal immigrants arrive every year.
Approximately 300,000 illegal immigrants enter England every year.
If we project this data forward to 2030, the figures look like this:
Indigenous British Population 2030:15 million.
Non-Indigenous Population (mainly Islamic) 2030: 23.5 million
@up the **** creek...
Bear in mind that the rate of outward migration could tail-off in the coming years as the size of the middle class shrinks. Those who can't afford to move out had better make sure that they've got a roof over their head, because house-building won't keep pace with the population explosion. And preferably accomodation at safe distance from the ethnics, because balkanisation is well-possible that will make the 2011 riots look like Playskool.
mY name is blonk my the old country i wish you readers well. try to forgive i know its difficult sometimes. but its good for your soul to do so. all well good
I told you it was a hawk. the situation involving immigrants becoming the majority in our lifetime does look a bit worrying but we could never have prevented it and we need immigrants to pay taxes and look after us as we get older. we put safeguards in place all the time to make sure minorities are well treated and when white british are the minority these laws will benefit us. in an ideal world things could have been done differently but if we were to keep our competitive edge we had to allow mass immigration. there is no way britain could stand isolated and not allow open borders when all the other advanced countries in the world opened there borders. change is sometimes hard to accept but by the time the real changes take place we will all be dead and buries so there is no point in arguing or falling out over something we cannot control.
merry christmas and a happy new year
labour til i die yet you think THAT, the St. John Ambulance Cross is a Nazi Iron Cross? Ya dummy M.
Calm down Roy, that was not Ballagher, just somebody pretending to be illiterate by not using the shift key.
Labour til i die said....
"there is no way britain could stand isolated and not allow open borders when all the other advanced countries in the world opened there (sic) borders."
Labour til i die, you really are pig ignorant as well as stupid.
Japan is the most technologically advanced nation on earth, and has the strictest immigration laws of all first world countries (after Israel), yet there is no clamour in Japan to open their borders to mass immigration. On the contrary, the Japanese Prime Minister recently admitted that keeping Japanese society ethnically homogenous was one important factor in Japan's economic success since the second world war.
Hey ncb get your facts right and drop the insults. i think you will find america is the most advanced nation on earth and they have always been a multiracial melting pot. it has done them no harm has it. i am agreeing with you that to much immigration has taken place but now theyre here we must make the best of the situation and make them welcome. they are never going to leave so we must live together as good neighbours.
Many advanced nations have strict immigration laws to keep out third world immigrants. Korea and Japan to name but two. Both these countries have hardly any ethnic minorities, and their governments intend to keep it that way.
America was an overwhelmingly white country (over 90%) until the 1965 immigration act, which opened the floodgates to the teeming hordes from the third world. Since 1965 the crime rate in the US has exploded.
@Labour til I die...
The economic case for mass non-white third world immigration has always been highly dubious. 'Official' statistics have never taken account of the all the many and varied factors that need to be considered when weighing perceived benefits and drawbacks.
Your average Afghan immigrant may pick the fields, but the revenue needed for his top-up welfare payments to feed, shelter and educate his ten children far outweigh any benefits. Black nurses may well serve the NHS (often at the expense of our own nurses), but the toll on our nation from the black crime and unemployment rate will always tip the balance toward the negative. And remember that those non-white immigrants will themselves one day demand pensions - do we keep the floodgates open forever?
And there was nothing ever inevitable about what has happened to white western nations. Short-sighted dim-wits like you who mocked Powell wilfully set out destroy the very fabric of what held us together as one people for millenia. Your remark about not worrying because natural death will intervene in your own personal case when the **** hits the fan should serve as a dire warning to all complacent Labour lemmings.
Thanks to the mis-management of the BNP it it now greatly reduced in terms of membership numbers and more crucially, in terms of capable activists. It is now menaced by a number of new and newly revived rival nationalist parties, all of which have been swelled in terms of their strength by the exodus of disillusioned activists from the BNP. British Nationalism is now composed of several micro-parties (including the BNP, which has now been reduced to micro-party status) and when further elections come along, we will see them fighting against each other and splitting the nationalist vote in every ward or constituency where there is any sizeable amount of nationalist support. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, no British Nationalist party will get any candidates elected and it is therefore futile to launch another new political party at this time.
While nationalist policies remain popular with the public, this popularity rarely translates into votes at election time, and this is because, as a movement, we have no resources and no infrastructure of any significance. Therefore, even with a clear run and no nationalist infighting, in the best wards and constituencies in this country, we have only ever managed to get an insignificantly small number of candidates elected, and now under a sustained barrage of attacks from the establishment, virtually everything we formerly gained under the BNP banner is being lost. Before we nationalist begin to campaign for political office again we must take time to acquire the resources necessary to generate the impact required and necessary to support our activists throughout the long struggle that lies ahead. There is no point going off at half-c#ck and running out of steam - our rise to power will be a 'marathon' and not a 'sprint' and we must be prepared to stay the distance.
The movement that will bring us salvation is still at an embryonic stage, but the new movement it will be ready to roll out across the country during the first two quarters of next year. It will not initially be a political party however, and it will not follow the other largely ineffectual route that Britain First have taken, that of acting as a pressure group and organising petitions, that we all know will simply be ignored by the establishment. The movement of national salvation will have fresh new tactics heralding a new era in the life of our nation. This will be the turning point that we have all longed for and I promise you, our campaign will be unstoppable!
If you really wish to see new effective measures and new leadership offering genuine hope of national salvation within a realistic timeframe, then sit tight and keep your money in your pockets until next year. Now is the time to maintain and renew contact with all of the good nationalists that you have previously encountered within any of the current political parties representing British Nationalism. 2012 will see a great coming together and a wave of euphoria and optimism for the future will sweep across the country.
This is the season of Good Will and I urge you all to be of Good Cheer. Rest yourselves and prepare, so that you are refreshed and ready for the struggle that lies ahead.
Look at the English Democrats election results. A nice clean party not yet a naughty party.
They come in way down after the sinking BNP.
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