Spotted this bird, sadly a road-kill, on the A1 at Whitecraig, by Inveresk, late last week (14/10); had been puzzled about species, roughly Kestrel sized but brown like a Buzzard and many bars seemingly ruling out all usual possibilities; so collected in early hours of Friday and despite having been squashed flat it was obviously a Hobby, quite a surprise.
As per pics above age and sex seems quite straightforward: dark brown upperparts, uniform flight feathers fringed buff, undertail coverts and thighs both well-marked all point to juv; big tear drop brown marks on thighs, and short bars on undertail (not extending to feather shaft as on juv male) confirm female. Sad end to a beautiful bird.
Nearby, remains of a Tawny Owl recovered from the Esk bridge, freshly dead on Wednesday morning, apparently juv too but need to dry out feathers.
Postscript - this bird was accepted by LBRC as the 32nd confirmed record for Lothian, remains retained at National Museums Scotland - it is interesting to note that the third record of Hobby (and last until 1975) was one found dead at Goshen, Musselburgh on 14 October 1912, 98 years to the day and just about a mile from the current bird, remarkable coincidence!
Also recently, feathers above of a dead owl recovered from Vaults Wood at White Sands, early October (per Kris Gibb, Ian Andrews) turn out to be from a Short-eared Owl, very probably an adult female; my guess is an expired migrant, just possibly a bird which expired in last winter's cold weather.
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