Scrutable

Buzzard or peregrine then. Buzzards have fat rounded wings, and the tail broadliy fanned out in flight. Peregrine has pointed wings, with a prominent bend in them, and holds its tail narrow and rectangular in flight. So if you got any kind of a view of the shape of the thing, then it should be possible to distinguish buzzard from peregrine very easily at a brief glance. Or colour - buzzards look rather brown, whereas peregrines are slate grey on top and pale underneath.

On grounds of frequency of spotting, my guess would be buzzard. I see buzzards all the time, and have hardly ever seen a peregrine. Though in part that's a feature of where I frequent. My place of work in London isn't in among the tall buildings. And there are only about 30 pairs in total in London. Buzzards are now common in the home counties, albeit greatly outnumbered by red kites here in the Chilterns.

Going back to corvids, I saw the fascinating sight yesterday of some jackdaws on a neighbour's roof sunbathing with their wings spread out (I did get some pictures but they're on the camera and it'll take me a bit of effort to get them off). Haven't seen that before, but apparently it's reasonably common.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:32 pm

We have a pair of neighbourhood red kites, which I've never personally seen do anything other than soaring like serene motherf.ckers tbh. Except for the times that crows, gulls* or, possibly yesterday, swifts attack them. Which is reasonably often.


*I live 70 miles from the coast.

If memory serves, you can buy frozen mice, rats or rabbits from petfood places to feed pet snakes.
You could try putting one in your garden to see if the kites come down (they are carrion feeders after all)

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:24 am

Going back to corvids, I saw the fascinating sight yesterday of some jackdaws on a neighbour's roof sunbathing with their wings spread out (I did get some pictures but they're on the camera and it'll take me a bit of effort to get them off). Haven't seen that before, but apparently it's reasonably common.

I haven't seen jackdaws doing it, but I see cormorants doing it all the time.

tom p wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:29 am

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:24 am

Going back to corvids, I saw the fascinating sight yesterday of some jackdaws on a neighbour's roof sunbathing with their wings spread out (I did get some pictures but they're on the camera and it'll take me a bit of effort to get them off). Haven't seen that before, but apparently it's reasonably common.

I haven't seen jackdaws doing it, but I see cormorants doing it all the time.

Cormorants also do that to dry their feathers off. Don't tell the "intelligent design" people, but despite being a seabird that dives for its food, cormorants' feathers aren't properly waterproof, so they have to drip-dry before they can fly off.

Interestingly the behaviour to do this seems to be quite hard-wired evolutionarily speaking, as the Flightless Cormorant on the Galápagos also does it.