With northerly winds during the day I felt an evening seawatch at Holme NOA might prove productive. Myself and dad joined Ray who was already in position. Unfortunately it was quiet, with 10 Arctic Skuas west and an auk sp. (almost certainly a Puffin but a little distant) east the best until 7:05pm. At this time myself and dad simultaneously picked up a large bird flying west just over the horizon at some distance offshore and quite a way round to the east. Ray R. quickly got onto it but as it continued round it dropped height until it was low over the water. It quickly became obvious that it had to be a raptor, and a massive one at that, being noticeably larger and heavier than the Gannets that had been passing at the same distance and I have seen Marsh Harriers several times offshore here before. The wingbeats were shallow and as a consequence mostly downwards, but they were obviously very powerful. At this stage it was possible to pick up some colour. The mantle was obviously light brown and briefly appeared flecked. As the bird approached the turbines it gained in height and began gliding. At one stage it briefly backed round and looked like it might head towards us but all too quickly it veered of towards the Lincolnshire coast. This did at least allow us a better look at the bird’s profile. The three of us felt confident that the bird was a near-certain Eagle sp. and I felt White-tailed Eagle was most likely based on the structure of the bird and the tone of the mantle colour. I quickly put it on the pager as such to alert those on the Lincolnshire coast. Obviously the difficulty of seperating this from an aquila eagle species, for example, at this distance and with my lack of experience with most eagle species would be very difficult and hence a certain identification is not attainable - a very interesting bird though.
