Very unfortunately I couldn't get a picture (will absolutely try if he comes back around!) however i recently spotted what i think was a golden eagle around the Consett area, more specifically nearer to allensford river which is just at the start of the upper east pennines for those who arent local. It's pretty common for me to see red kites so at first i assumed that's what it was but it had a full tail rather than a forked one and it definitely was too big to be anything else. The closest thing to a picture of it was so zoomed in it just looks like a little black blob sadly since i was too busy staring at it that i forgot to take a picture while it was mostly overhead. Please let me know if this is the wrong place for posting, thanks
Hi. Last week, we were driving to go on holiday when we saw this enormous bird swoop down right in front of our car.
Generally brown in colour, but a wingspan of roughly 2m plus a really big body. Neither of us could get our camera to take a photo.
Since returning home, we have searched every bird of prey identification website plus visited our local library in order to find out what it was. Since then, the only bird it could be appears to be a golden eagle.
However, we were driving on a quiet part of Surrey countryside so this bird was way out of his/her area. Oddly enough, we went to a bird of prey flight display whilst on holiday and the bird we saw matches the one that was flying exactly.
So, could it be possible that this bird has either chosen to be down in the South or perhaps got lost?
Thanks
Highly unlikely to be a Golden Eagle in Surrey. However, just possible could be a White Tailed Eagle, because of the reintroduction scheme for this species on the Isle of White. The youngsters from this range very widely, including to the continent and Scotland.
From the comments, sounds like bird was identified from colour and wing span.....and following a brief glimpse from the car. Almost certainly a buzzard IMO (which are variable incl "generally brown") and common, but I guess we'll never know.
Hi.
Thanks for your reply. I should have said in original post that the bird swooped in from our left and just glided along for 50 yards or so. The bird stayed no further than around 5-10 feet in front of windscreen so I wouldn't say that we had a "quick glimpse".
I am still pretty much convinced that this was a golden eagle. No other bird matches size/colouring/wingspan etc that I could ascertain from your website.
I'm sorry but that confirms it was not a golden eagle. Buzzard is the most obvious, and as prev., the colour description matches.