Who would have thought i would be asking an ornithology question on the fediverse one day🦩👀
Yet, here it comes!
I saw a super curious bird that I have not been able to identify at all. It happened twice within the last two weeks in Germany and the Netherlands.
It was a medium-sized bird that both times was hunting (?) on agricultural fields, going down very fast in a spiral and then quickly going up again. It has a very unique high-pitch call, before seeing the bird I thought it was an alarm!
It is black from above, but on the bottom side the wings are black and the belly is white. The wings also have a shape that is very easy to spot from afar, they’re wider at the end (see below for a pixeled illustration).
If anyone has encountered them before or has any idea I would love to hear any leads :D
Neet. Never heard them called that before. Always been “osprey”. Now I know…and knowing is half the battle.
and the other half of the battle is falcon punches.
@TrojanRoomCoffeePot it did look a bit similar in colours and shape, but I’m reading they hunt fish so I would exclude it for now🧐
I wonder at whether or not they have a cousin who looks similar then, or if the colouration was the result of Spring molting?
scroll thru this list and see whether you can spot a matching image or silhoutte:
going down very fast in a spiral
This makes me think some kind of falcon? Do any of these look familiar:
@doubtingtammy @ceci I would have said something similar to a falcon too! I see them hunting in the fields around my house in my hometown (in the countryside). We call them “falchetti” :)
There’s a few hawk species around me that do that. But I’m nowhere near there.
@Jerb322 it could be!
My best guesses for now are:
- Eurasian goshawk
- Merlin
They look similar to the ones i spotted in terms of colour, and the calls would also fit. I guess I would need a third meet-up to have a final answer but learnt so much about birds in the meantime ahah
Thank you @doubtingtammy @takeheart for the lists, they were very useful :)
