What a good trick, which I fell into. Embarrassing. I could only go by the pale aspect to know they were not the same bird. And it took me a long time to struggle
through it, thinking it was an odd Little Eagle, and why so pale, though Geoffrey didn’t say it was.......... Actually I should have twigged. The Little Eagle shows a wide split between feathers at the tip of 6 primaries, that are all a similar length (which
gives the distinctive sort of rectangular shape to the wing), the harrier only 4.
Philip
From: Geoffrey Dabb [
Sent: Saturday, 9 June, 2018 9:28 AM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Wotsit and Wingtip
Veteran Wotsiters and Loch Ness students Con, Mark and Philip correctly inferred a cormorant. In this case it was a Little Black.
Many of you will have noticed that my offered Wednesday wingtip (over cow paddocks, JWNR) belonged to a harrier, Swamp, male, pale variety. This lacked the contrasting dark tips of a Little Eagle. It is also a more rangy bird. To borrow,
more or less, a line from the Australian carol ‘Christmas where the Gum Trees Grow’ –
Long wings the harr-ee-er has got,
Neat and chunky is what it’s not.
