Here in wildlife enquiries we occasionally get sent some rather interesting finds including pictures of unsual garden visitors, feathers and occasionally dead birds. We are more than happy to take a look at feathers and pictures but we are not too keen on the dead birds, they don't travel well in the post and rarely arrive in one piece and make for a pretty unpleasant surprise first thing in the morning!!! So if you come across something that has died and you want to know more about it, get in touch first before popping the unfortunate critter in the post!
I thought i'd share with you all some pictures I took of something that was sent into us recently that might be of interest, have a look below and see if you can guess what species of bird this plumage belongs to?
Here is the wing with some of the feathers removed for illustrative purposes, as Rolf Harris would say, 'can you tell what it is yet?'
I think a game bird for the first and owl for second poss Eagle but not sure
Ray
Interesting guess there but actually this plumage is from the same bird, I won't give up the answer just yet.
got to go for cock pheasant Ian
RAY
The first thing that came to mind was sparrowhawk.
I think I'd be tempted to suggest Kestrel. Maybe the first photo is of the top of the wing and the second of the underside.
Time for a clue me thinks! So the item sent to us was a wing and the pictures are from different parts of it. Nobody has the correct answer just yet. I'll post a picture of the entire wing tomorrow!
Is it eagle owl
Hi Ray, think smaller! I'll post the wing picture in a short while!
Try long eared owl then Ian
Not far off size wise, still not right though. I've added the wing picture above, now what do you think?
Tawny Owl?
got to go with Tawny
Drum roll please...it's a woodcock wing! Thanks for your guesses, the plumage is really cryptic, such a shame that this one met an untimely fate but you don't realise how intricate the plumage is until you have a real close up look at the feathers. RIP Mr Woodcock
Doh