ID Help Please Eagle or Buzzard

These aren't great shots but have sparked a lot of debate on my FB page. Can anyone tell me if this is a buzzard or an eagle. Taken on northern scotland very near the coast.

I am used to seeing buzzards but this was really big. Big enough to send me running for my camera. Any experts who can assist with an ID would be very welcome. Even better if you can give some reasoning to your ID as opposed to just its a buzzard or it's an eagle

For scale the visible section of fence post in the images is about 1m

My personal opinion is that's it's a juvenile golden eagle but I'm no expert.

Thanks a lot

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Could it be a hawk maybe? Not sure about the birds in the UK, and when I look them up, that might be a common or honey buzzard, but does look like some of the hawks in our area here. Looks like the term hawk and buzzard are used loosely with some of the raptor species.

Buzzard.

Reasons:

The beak - small and hooked = Buzzard, eagle beaks are massive and just seem to be an extension of the head, they have a longer straighter top before curving down to the hook, this is called the culmen and would be about 4cm long on a Golden Eagle, your bird does not exhibit this.

Juvenile Golden Eagle have much more dark colouring on their underwings especially on the leading edge side and as they age the white patch becomes fairly well defined , in your case underwing pattern is very Buzzard and has way too much white on them to be a Juvenile Golden.

Wing size, the upward wing stretch on the post indicates each wing is roughly the same size as the length of the bird, head to tail, a Golden's wing is easily longer than body of the bird and the wings are wide... really wide.
Whilst we are on the stretched wings, if your post estimate is spot on at 1m then if it's a Golden then the wing stretch should be of similar length, but its not, at roughly 2/3rds the length of the post it fits with a Buzzards 4 foot wing span.

Tarsus (leg) feathers, on a Golden they cover the entire leg, on a Buzzard they stop well short, your taking off bird is showing plenty of leg.

Sorry, I'm sure it's a Buzzard...

I found this on a site about the confusion between these two species in Scotland, I hope the original author doesn't mind me quoting it:

1. Some Buzzards really are large
2. People don't realise just how enormous eagles are
3. People REALLY want to see an Eagle.

Kev

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18882580
Could it be a hawk maybe? Not sure about the birds in the UK, and when I look them up, that might be a common or honey buzzard, but does look like some of the hawks in our area here. Looks like the term hawk and buzzard are used loosely with some of the raptor species.

Absolutely, Common Buzzard - Buteo Buteo, we call them Buzzards you call them Hawks all part of the Buteo Genus, Rough Legged, Red-tailed Swainson's Ferruginous and more.

Honey Buzzard though is not a Buteo, oh the joys of naming species!

Kev

Thanks so much for the detailed reply. It was the size of the thing that really confused me. We get buzzards in the field every day but this one really caught my eye as it was massive compared to the usual ones. Not just a bit bigger, really really big.

I wasn't particularly looking to see an eagle, it was just from my back window and was so different from the usual it made me run and get my camera.

Happy to know what it was. A REALLY big buzzard

big_g wrote in post #18882622
Thanks so much for the detailed reply. It was the size of the thing that really confused me. We get buzzards in the field every day but this one really caught my eye as it was massive compared to the usual ones. Not just a bit bigger, really really big.

I wasn't particularly looking to see an eagle, it was just from my back window and was so different from the usual it made me run and get my camera.

Happy to know what it was. A REALLY big buzzard

Sure and I didn't want to imply you wanted to see an Eagle - just thought that was a very good quote, they also said they call Buzzards "Tourist Eagles" and to be fair I suspect they are generally talking about in-flight sightings.

Don't know if you're a Father Ted fan but I'm sitting here chuckling over the sketch where Ted is trying to explain to Dougal why Cows seem to be different sizes... This one wasn't closer than you normally get to your usual ones was it?
(you'll have to google it if you don't know it).

Kev

I'm a massive Father Ted fan so get it completely

It definitely wasn't closer than the ones that were far away lol.

I'm pleased I now know for sure what it was. A very big buzzard.

Thanks again