Out riding this afternoon in forest on the south downs and was checking out the great hefty buzzard I always see flying between trees when a much smaller bird of prey darted past, landed in a tree then shot off again. It was about third size of the buzzard with distinctively white underside of wing and a real 'spitfire profile' to the wing tips i.e rounded not splayed like most kestrals etc I've seen before....
merlin?
Sparrowhawk?
sparrowhawk?
Baby Robinhawk
+1 for sparrowhawk
Nun of the above 😀
Just been talking to my mum who is a bit of a twitcher and apparently based on my description and the habitat it was almost certainly a Goshawk.
Cool, never seen one of those before.
The spitfire wing profile and light coloured underside sounds pretty much like a female sparrowhawk. They're about the size of a pigeon.
May have been a merlin. Broader, shorter wings than a kestrel, and a fair bit smaller. They glide between rapid series of wingbeats. Females are mottled brwn all over with lighter underwings.
Just been talking to my mum who is a bit of a twitcher and apparently based on my description and the habitat it was almost certainly a Goshawk
possibly, but they're bigger than a kestrel, almost as big as a buzzard. Very similar to a sparrowhawk, and usually pretty secretive.
Have a look at BBC4 right now.
Could it have been a smaller variety of Harrier of some sorts? Montagu’s?
A goshawk is a pretty big bird.
A goshawk is a pretty big bird.
This. Like a BIG Sparrowhawk. Lucky to see one too as they're not common.
Possibly a cockhawk, or a shitehawk.
Video of a Goshawk at 4:38 in the link below:
https://www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-id/bto-bird-id-summer-buzzards-common-buzzard-and-honey-buzzard
From the behaviour sounds very much like a Sparrowhawk. As others have said a Goshawk is nearly as big as a Buzzard and is more likely to have slower wing beats and soar, as opposed to a Sparrowhawk which behaves as you describe.
well I just watched a bunch of videos and the bird I saw was definitely not a sparrowhawk. It didn't have speckles,or the mannerisms and didn't fly like one. It did look, act and fly exactly like a goshawk but it was also less than half the size of the buzzard.
I'm sticking with young goshawk I'm afraid.
or a shitehawk.
Possibly, they’re a lot more common these days, saw one flying over our off-site storage area last week, being mobbed by one of the local crows.
Tourist eagle?