Greater Spotted Eagle

The Greater Spotted Eagle is a medium-sized eagle with broad wings and a short tail. It should be noted right away that it has similarities with its congener, the Lesser Spotted Eagle, with which it was confused until the 19th century. Moreover, it is now proven that it is capable of hybridizing with it, producing birds with an intermediate phenotype, which can complicate identification.
The adult is distinctive, with its dark brown plumage that can appear black at a distance and especially in poor light. Distinctive also is its silhouette in flight. Its broad 7-finger wings make the tail seem shorter than it is. The latter is very rounded at the end, even slightly cuneiform. The coverts are of the same dark brown as the body. In the upper view, the top is uniformly dark brown, with only the uppers-caudal slightly clearer and a bright flash at the level of the palm. On the other hand, in the underside view, the primaries have a glossy gray-brown appearance that makes them appear lighter than the coverts. Finally, the lower belly and the under-coat is light and contrasting.
At rest, the wings barely exceed the tail. The tarsi are closely plumaged and thus appear quite slender. Finally, when the bird can be seen from close enough, the rounded nostrils, not slit, should be noted.
By comparison, the adult Lesser Spotted Eagle is smaller and better proportioned, with wings less wide. The back is more contrasted, with the mantle darker than the coverts, the clear arc of circle at the base of the tail and the bright flash of the palm much more pronounced. From below, the coverts are lighter than the primaries.
The adult Greater Spotted Eagle could also be confused with the adult Steppen Eagle where they coexist.But this last one is bigger, with longer wings and tail, resulting in a substantially different silhouette, but they both present the same dark plumage. From up close one has to observe the plumy tarsus, appearing bulky, as well as the oblique nostrils.
In the Greater Spotted Eagle, there exists a very particular pale morph called fulvescens. This morphotype presents the tint of the body's feather the tint of a creamy russet, in strong contrast to the remiges and rectrices of a dark brown, as so as its counterpart. Such a bird could thus be mistaken for a young Short-toed Eagle, for example.
The juvenile differs from adult through an even darker plumage, black-brown like, featuring clear whitish extremities of certain plumes, major and minor coverts, scapulars, tertial remiges and upper-tail coverts, a plumage pattern that does not have an equivalent among Old World raptors. A young pomarine is darker than adult and can approach the Greater Spotted Eagle's tint in nuance, but the clear extremities of the aforementioned plumes are more narrow hence less visible. The situation is intermediate for the hybrid. In successive moults, the clear spots of the plumage will tend to progressively fade away, until eventually disappearing altogether from the adult.