What Bird of Prey is this?

[martins show birds]

its a vulture. definitely. we have too many around here in VA.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Absolutely a vulture. And your video shows it very well if viewers would only look at it full screen and bring up the quality to 4K or better. You have a very decent camera btw. Harmless and only looking for something very dead and stinky. They are amazing in that they can actually detect something dead from miles away by scent alone.

Eagles do NOT soar/glide with their wings in a V shape. The wings are held out flat and there are no exceptions.

Thank you very much, it is just the camera in my five year old Samsung S7 phone. It records with 4K and i have uploaded this particular video in 4K resolution. - Usually i downsize the videos to Full HD before i sent them to YT.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Definitely an emu.

I think it was one of the rare one-winged unicorn birds…

 

[Nessa's girls]

With many of our crow-friends gone for the winter, my ducks are spotting airborne dangers more frequently now. On Saturday a large bird of prey was circling over us, caught it on video when it came lower and sat up shop in a tree:

Anybody an idea what kind of predator this is? - And is it a particular danger to my ducks?
Thank you very much in advance for your help.

 

[Nessa's girls]

Thank you very much, it is just the camera in my five year old Samsung S7 phone. It records with 4K and i have uploaded this particular video in 4K resolution. - Usually i downsize the videos to Full HD before i sent them to YT.

Not prey bird. Just a buzzard. They keep the dead animals cleaned up

 

[Red original]

With many of our crow-friends gone for the winter, my ducks are spotting airborne dangers more frequently now. On Saturday a large bird of prey was circling over us, caught it on video when it came lower and sat up shop in a tree:

Anybody an idea what kind of predator this is? - And is it a particular danger to my ducks?
Thank you very much in advance for your help.

I watch the video two or three times enlarged. Pretty sure by the size & wing span it's an American Bald Eagle. If it's immature yearling it will be solid golden brown. I Thought in the video enhanced I could see white.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I watch the video two or three times enlarged. Pretty sure by the size & wing span it's an American Bald Eagle. If it's immature yearling it will be solid golden brown. I Thought in the video enhanced I could see white.

That would be bad news for my ducks! Are you sure about this?
On their website, (https://www.wvdnr.gov/Publications/PDFFiles/WVeaglesWR.pdf, page 2) the WVDNR states that
»Bald eagles are rare in West Virginia
in all seasons. Occasional summer
residents are sighted, usually in
the vicinity of the Potomac River.
During fall migration, bald eagles
may be seen all across the state, but
most observations come from the
mountains where birds follow the
ridges southward.«
So that could in fact have been a migrating eagle…
I have not seen this bird again since Monday last week.
We are not closely located to the Potomac river at all, we're on the other side of the Appalachian mountains.

 

[Qwerty3159]

My vote is immature turkey vulture. Supposedly, that flight behavior is almost exclusive to them.

"If you are trying to identify a flying bird from the ground, watch for a wobble. The distinctive wobble of turkey vultures, where they teeter from side to side on their V-shaped wings, is a behavior called contorted soaring.

Turkey vultures rarely flap their wings, instead gliding along on drafts like a paper airplane. One wing is held mostly parallel to the ground, and the other tilted up. Fast-moving air flowing across the top of the parallel wing lowers the air pressure above the wing, so it is less than the pressure created from the slow-moving air underneath the wing. The higher pressure under the wing creates lift, keeping the wing up.

Turkey vultures have an impressive six-foot wing span, but unlike most large birds, they rely on their sense of smell rather than eyesight to find their prey. By staying lower to the ground, they are better able to smell out carrion.

As an added bonus, a lower altitude and staying closer to the tree line may keep them below the notice of black vultures, which are smaller but more aggressive than the turkey vultures. The problem with flying low is that a turkey vulture is a lot of bird to keep aloft, and there are fewer updrafts at lower altitudes. By continuously tilting to change which wing experiences lift, turkey vultures make use of small-scale air disturbances in distinctive style to keep on soaring."

 

[WGHowell]

Buzzards don't like ducks. They are looking for the real kill , Some good ol roadkill possum or an armadillo. Now that's top of the line dining for a buzzard.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

Interesting fact: if you come across a turkey vulture on the ground do not approach it. They have a very nasty self defense mechanism. They projectile vomit at you