Birds of Prey - M6 Staffordshire

[poetrylover]

Travelling back down the M6 yesterday afternoon in Staffordshire (between Stoke and Stafford - ish!) I saw, on 2 occasions, a bird of prey circling overhead ... what was likely to be? I wasn't a kestral as it/they were way too big , quite a large wingspan, with a straight wing profile... and when the light caught it, it appeared to be chesnut/red brown ..... any ideas?

[BlueKraut]

Possibly a buzzard. They are pretty common these days and much bigger than kestrels

[Milvus]

Probably a red kite. The tail has a noticeable V shape

[Rosetta]

As BlueKraut says, there are quite a lot of buzzards in the area

[poetrylover]

Thanks everyone - thought it might be a red kite - but alas no V in the tail ... so will have to agree it was a buzzard .... will look for a photo.

[Meg]

Slightly north but we live next to the M6, found a buzzard with a very damaged wing last week, there are a lot of them here, phoned RSPCA, they gave us the name of a local vet to take it to, which we did, they didn't seem very interested in it and I suspect the poor thing was just put to sleep. Sorry, just having a rant!!!!

[poetrylover]

Oh Miss Meg - that's very sad - you would think they might have helped it - where are all the nice wildlife rehab people we see on the telly??

[Ice.Maiden]

Could've ben a sparrowhawk poetrylover. Very common around the country.
I know what you mean about the RSPCA miss meg. I called them out to a pigeon which's damaged its wing badly. They never came out, and teh poor thing died after several hours of being in that state. It was very upsetting.