Short-toed Eagle at Osugat

Thanks Dick, I certainly did not see anything at all inconsistent with Short-toed (Snake-) Eagle in this bird. Essentially it was a fairly pale grey headed individual which is perhaps not well brought out by these pictures of the underside taken obliquely to the source of light.

Hence very unlikely that it could be Beaudouin's, especially as:

The underpart blotching was not really so large nor so bold, and similarly in reality, the underwing barring was definitely not what one would call coarse. We saw the bird very well and much closer than the image in the three pictures; which were fired off by Tommy on my request, as an afterthought.

Is it possible that the enhancement disproportionately exaggerates the shape and extent of many of these dark markings? Certainly it usually appears to me that the more enlarged the image, the "less life-like'"they make it appear, and in the most recent series of the same pictures, "enhanced" by (my web-master!) Lars Johansson, an unrecognised reddish-brown hue has appeared at various points almost all over the bird.

By the way, as mentioned below, I distinctly noted a typical broad transverse carpal band across the upperwing.

Further I would have thought all Black-chested Snake-Eagles of any age after 8 months or so would show very dark, or even black, feathering in the upper breast and less patterned, 'cleaner' rufous, buff or white underparts (according to age) and more significantly, surely they should have almost unmarked underwing coverts?

Certainly I have never seen a bird like this before here in TZ and there are many C. pectoralis hereabouts.

S-t Eagles nested beside us on that cattle farm near Facinas, SW Spain and as you know flocks come through the Isla de Tarifa and its environs, often very low indeed, almost daily early each spring.

Thanks again, James

James, I only analysed what I (and anyone) could see from the picture, my statement was NOT a criticism of the original identification. I only wanted to make sure that you were aware of the potential pitfall with imm Black-chested.

As you know, the acquisition of ad plumage takes probably about two-three years in Black-chested (this is my educated guess, nothing more). During this period the light brownish plumage gradually disappears giving way to a rather blotchy-looking, Short-toed like plumage before the final immaculate and diagnostic adult plumage is required. I don't think any of the current field-guides show these transitional stages and they seem to be largely unknown to most field-birders, at least to people from outside Africa.

Lars Johansson writes:
But you can't really say anything about the colour with shots like these. The camera's auto white-balance doesn't work when there's just blue sky and a little bird speck (compensating for the blue makes the bird look reddish; I just upped the saturation to see if there was some colour to discover) I guess a shiny white seagull would look dark grey or reddish brown in that light too. I think the lens makes the dark marks look broader, it's the same fuzziness as at the edges.
It's a good lens that Tommy used - giving results without colour fringing, so you don't realise how microscopically tiny the bird is on the digital equivalent of the film frame.

Simon Thomsett (a raptor fundi from Kenya) believes that this bird at Osugat could well be an immature Black-breasted (chested) Snake-Eagle.

"I also think that the December 15, 2007 Osugat 'Short-toed Snake-Eagle' is in fact a moulting 18 month old Black-breasted Snake-Eagle.
They are so similar, even in the hand, but Bill Clark also wrote a paper in which (he discusses whether) the distal tips of the secondaries have/do not have a bar.
We in northern Kenya had miss identified a museum specimen, thinking it was a Short-toed.

It was dead, and in the hand and (yet) still tough to ID."