About winter visitors and winterers

Photos Arne Ader
Translation Liis
Rough-legged buzzard
 
Rough-legged buzzard   Taliviu or karvasjalg-viu          Buteo lagopus
 
Common buzzard     Hiireviu         Buteo buteo
 
"Winter visitors” were quite many last winter and so they are this year too. The number of rough-legged buzzards varies over the years, but we estimate them at around a thousand in winter. Earlier rough-legged buzzards, neither the wintering nor the passing ones,were not  identified as such because of their similarity to our breeding and wintering common buzzards, and they did not even have a name of their own.
 
Now that winter has suddenly started the rough-legged buzzards roam around more to find good feeding places. A large part of the short winter day is spent in searching for prey, hovering above meadows and fields or sitting in a higher tree or pole in order to observe carefully what happens on the ground. Sometimes we can even see several rough-legged buzzards at a time: then the area is very good for mouse hunting. It is not rare that they hunt on a territory together with wintering common buzzards.
 
Now the individual traits in their respective behaviour and exterior should be compared. We see the rough-legged buzzard performing so-called hovering flight quite often, whereas a common buzzard in hovering flight is rarely seen, perhaps just before it attacks a mouse on the snow.
 
The plumage of a rough-legged buzzard looks  light brown, that of a common buzzard dark brown. As for size they are rather similar, the darker common buzzard maybe a little smaller. The wingspan of the rough-legged buzzard is almost a metre and a half, that is, more than that of common buzzards. The pale belly of the rough-legged buzzards and almost white undersides of the wings are good distinguishing characteristics. In the flight view of a common buzzard  the belly as well as the undersides of wings look brown with a lighter pattern.
·         
Common buzzards have the same plumage the year round; the female is just a little larger, as is characteristic for birds of prey.
 
On rough-legged buzzards the head and breast of the male are darker than the belly; on the tail we see several darker bands before the band at the tip. The belly plumage of the female seems darker than the head and breast, and on the tail there is just one narrow band before the broad band at the tip.
 
Identification in the winter landscape should be a little easier now.
 
Common buzzard 
 


 

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