Is this a Golden Eagle?

[JLamont86]

Hi guys,

Took a drive up to Fortingall yesterday with the Mrs. While we're looking at the Yew tree I heard a number of birds calling. Looked up and saw what I thought was initially a buzzard, then another, then another, until I counted 7 different birds.

They seemed to be in a commotion over something and were almost "mobbing" another bird like you see crows do with buzzards.

I took some photo's and on closer inspection it looked to my untrained eye like a golden eagle, but I'd be interested to see peoples thoughts on if its an eagle or not??

[jmarkb]

It's really hard to tell from the photo, but the low-level location, the number of birds together and them making noise all tend to suggest buzzards, rather than eagles. Or do you think the bird they were mobbing was an eagle? If so it would have looked significantly bigger.

[David-Main]

Hard to tell from your shot but i would say 90% buzzards... have a look at my pics there is one of an eagle getting mobbed by a raven and a buzzard.
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26666
Too much white on their bellies.

[electricfly]

Yeah those two are Buzzards. The trees in your photo add to this conclusion, they are more suited to Buzzard habitat. The noise also would indicate that the group were Buzzards.

Golden Eagles much prefer open rugged hillside to the forested areas where Buzzards thrive.

Visually it is fairly easy to tell the difference between Buzzard and Golden Eagle. The key factor is to examine the splay of the birds tail. A Buzzard has what resembles a fanned out tail which is usually very curved at its end, whereas a Golden Eagle has a tail with a much less fanned appearance and it's end only appears slightly curved. Not forgetting the size, Golden Eagles are HUGE.

See this much straighter tail end on the Golden Eagle I clicked here on the Ben Alder Estate.



Hope this helps.

[past my sell by date]

I also think that you see the individual primaries on eagles (as in the photo above) much more often than on buzzards

[Rainbowstrand]

Here's a shot of a buzzard which might help you to see differences. This shot was taken in Devon woodland.

[jay d]

definitely buzzard ,easily told apart from golden eagles by the much smaller head and flight pattern(flap and glide). Usually the mew is heard before they come into sight