{"id":463,"date":"2010-03-22T11:22:01","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T09:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/birds-in-spain\/mystery-eagle-spanish-imperial-eagle\/"},"modified":"2010-03-22T11:22:01","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T09:22:01","slug":"mystery-eagle-spanish-imperial-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/birds-in-spain\/mystery-eagle-spanish-imperial-eagle\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Eagle: Spanish Imperial Eagle?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The following is a series of photos taken by <strong>Dutch bird photographer Frank Dr\u00f6ge<\/strong> on Thursday 18th March at our <strong>Lammergeier feeding station and photography site<\/strong> in the Pre-Pyrenees of <strong>Catalonia<\/strong>, Spain.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spanish-imperial-1.jpg\" alt=\"Juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle, Aquila adalberti ?\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spanish-imperial-2.jpg\" alt=\"Juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle Aquila adalberti in the Pyrenees.\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spanish-imperial-10.jpg\" alt=\"Is this a juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle, Aquila adalberti?\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spanish-imperial-11.jpg\" alt=\"Eagle thought to be a juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle Aquila adalberti.\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spanish-imperial-12.jpg\" alt=\"Probable juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle Aquila adalberti\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/spanish-imperial-13.jpg\" alt=\"Probable juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle Aquila adalberti with juvenile Lammergeier Gypaetus barbatus\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Probable juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle Aquila adalberti. All photographs copyright of Frank Dr\u00f6ge.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>They show what is obviously a juvenile\u00a0<em>Aquila<\/em> eagle, but one which is not a <strong>Golden Eagle <\/strong><em>Aquila chrysaetos<\/em>, the only Aquila eagle that could be expected in the region. The combination of the pale, milky-brown coloration, the general lack of streaking, the all dark tail, the degree of contrast on the outer and inner halves of the outer primaries and the deep, heavy bill have led us to conclude that it is a <strong>juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle<\/strong> <em>Aquila adalberti<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>However, to get here we had to consider several candidates, including <strong>Eastern Imperial Eagle<\/strong> <em>Aquila heliaca<\/em>, the <em>fulvescens <\/em>form of the <strong>Greater Spotted Eagle<\/strong> <em>Aquila clanga<\/em>, and even the <strong>Tawny Eagle<\/strong> <em>Aquila rapax<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The main obstacle to 100% confidence in <strong>Spanish Imperial Eagle<\/strong> is the pale coloration, much paler than the few juveniles that Frank and I have seen between us. Could this be due to wear or bleaching?<\/p>\n<p>We would be glad to hear any comments that can shed light on this matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following is a series of photos taken by Dutch bird photographer Frank Dr\u00f6ge on Thursday 18th March at our Lammergeier feeding station and photography site in the Pre-Pyrenees of Catalonia, Spain. Probable juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle Aquila adalberti. All photographs copyright of Frank Dr\u00f6ge. They show what is obviously a juvenile\u00a0Aquila eagle, but one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-in-spain"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7I752-7t","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}