Young raptor.

[Anji]

[Anji]

Bear with me. I'm still perfecting this 'posting a photo' lark.
The youngster above was on our garden wall a couple of weeks ago.
Can anyone identify it?

[Anji]

No wonder nobody could identify it! Trying again.

[buzzard]

Hm, looks like a (non-native) falcon to me. Probably from a falconer. Saker falcon or maybe hybrid?
Why do you think it was a young raptor?
Could it maybe have had leather straps on its legs?

[Anji]

I thought that raptor was a general name for any bird of prey, but I've just checked in the dictionary and now realise my error.
You could be right that it might belong to someone as it seemed fairly tame and let me get very close before flying away.
We have a buzzard and sparrow hawks in the vicinity, but I thought it was too big to be a young sparrow hawk.

[Anji]

I took several photos of it, and have just checked, but there is no sign of leather straps in any of them.

[buzzard]

That's not what I meant, it is a raptor . I meant: why do you think it is young?

[Anji]

Don't laugh. I thought it was young because its feathers looked soft and fluffy.