Saturday, November 06, 2010

Marsh Harrier male but what age?











I love these birds -- always full of questions - the very pale iris and the silver grey in the tail feathers suggest it is an older male but the heavy pattern on the silver grey of the coverts and the rich underwing coverts and underpart colour suggest a younger bird -- the tail is actually quite odd in my experience with those blackish distal areas and wedges up both webs of the feathers surrounding the grey central portion

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It looks too light to be a 2nd year marsh harrier in autumn (or third year in spring), so I suppose it's a third year harrier in autumn (or fourth year in spring, but I'm assuming you took these pics during autumn as that's when you uploaded them.) You had to wait 5 and a half years for somebody to notice this interesting harrier and reply to your question.) Great pictures, and peculiar tail!