Buzzards over the garden

With spells of settled sunny weather the Common Buzzards have been more obvious soaring over the garden than for the last few weeks. Here are some shots of a darkish first winter bird (2CY) that has passed over a couple of times recently.

I am quite a fan of these juvenile Buzzards - they have a different silhouette to the adult birds, with longer tail and bulging secondaries compared to their narrower inner primaries. Here is a paler juvenile that passed over in September. Like the bird above, the less heavily marked trailing edge to the wing is another distinction from the adults.

This adult shows the contrasting darker trailing edge to the wing and slightly longer inner primaries and shorter tail giving the bird a more compact and less rangy appearance in flight.