[0]Snake Eagles: photo Dominiek TimmermansAmazingly, exactly a year after the mystery Snake-Eagle [0] was at Osugat (on December 15, 2006), Dominiek Timmermans and I 'were found by' another very similar looking bird yesterday December 14, 2007 in almost exactly the same place. Bubble number 1 in the photo. It disturbs me a little that I have not seen a similarly marked bird (i.e. "a Short-toed type"), despite 'checking every eagle', in many weeks in the field in the intervening year anywhere in Tanzania, (including forty-five days birding here at Osugat).

As at first it came towards us at about 20 degrees above the horizon, looking through the windscreen I at first called it a Martial Eagle so full-winged, grey-brown and  powerful did it appear.

Dominiek managed to get a few pictures of the bird.

Interestingly only an hour later we watched (and photographed) a more typical immature Black-chested in flight; probably the same first year that we have been seeing here for several weeks; it was less than two kilometres away from where we saw the first bird. Bubble number 2 in the photo.

Simon Thomsett wrote me earlier in the year regarding the first observation back in 2006.

I think that the Osugat Short-toed Snake-Eagle is in fact a moulting 18 month old Black-breasted Snake-Eagle. They are so similar, even in the hand, but Bill Clark also wrote a paper in which (he discusses whether) the distal tips of the secondaries have/do not have a bar. We in northern Kenya had miss identified a museum specimen, thinking it was a Short-toed. It was dead, and in the hand and (yet) still tough to ID.

And regarding : ID of Ayres's Hawk-Eagle versus Booted Eagle.

Also there is a debate regarding a "Karatu Eagle" [0]that I have managed to find on your web pages.

I found a picture of a pale morph Booted Eagle (flying from right to left) that (was initially) labeled as an Ayres's.

The ID give-away is that Ayres's (Hawk-) Eagle has long thin toes including a long middle toe. The male's foot is exactly the same proportions as a female Peregrine's foot (tarsus not included). The foot hangs clear. In the picture of the "Karatu Eagle" the toes are short and stubby. Also the Ayres's has a deeper eyebrow and longer protruding head and more laterally compressed bill. Also colour-wise this looks more like a pale morph Booted than a pale morph Ayres's. Hope that helps.

Simon Thomsett