The Changeable Crest Hawk Eagle

[Pavan Kumar Mangu]

An amazing bird to photograph. He was perched right on top of us and was looking at us at every click. I guess the sound interested him. It was a pleasure to meet him! For the ladies in here ... it could be a 'her' for all you know. But I know in birds the males look more attractive and so I am thinking its a him. If there is anyone who can throw some light it will be great!

[Pavan Kumar Mangu]

Looks like I made a mistake, can the Admin please move this to birds! Thanks so much... sorry for the trouble.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

hi pavan,

Nice eye contact.the image looks over sharpened. this is an immature bird and sexual dimorphism is very subtle in the CHE. you can say it is non existent unless you see the pair together. The southern sub species is called crested hawk eagle as it has distinct crest.

TFS
Roopak

[Pavan Kumar Mangu]

Hi Roopak. I didn't do anything to the sharpness. Maybe the bird just looked sharp :). Frankly I must have adjusted the light a little bit thats all. Got your point so the sexual dimorphism is a difficult thing in this sub-species. A very beautiful bird I should say. We throughly enjoyed watching and picturing it. Thanks Roopak!

[Mrudul Godbole]

You got it nicely through the 'V' in the branch. Good eye contact. Slight more space at the bottom to include the tail feathers fully would have been good. A vertical composition would also have worked well here. Do post the EXIF details like aperture, shutter speed, ISO to help in commenting better. Thanks for sharing.

[Pavan Kumar Mangu]

I think I got the tail feathers in another shot, I will post that as well. This was on a 70-300 mm lens - Nikkor. Shutter would have been over a 100. ISO - 200. Aperture - 5.6. I am posting the other picture as well for your benefit.

[Vipin Sharma]

Indeed an excellent work with camera , I think a slightly higher shutter speed of upto 1/640 and aperture of f/8.0(depth of field) would have brought the eyes and entire head much sharper.
Agree with Ropak he/she is juvenile and at this stage it is very difficult to distinguish between male and female.

[Pavan Kumar Mangu]

Thanks Vipin. I will try that next time. Maybe the bird is a juvenile. I will talk for myself. I am a large carnivore lover and I keep looking for one of them, in the process miss out on some of these beautiful creatures. I will try every nook and corner for birds this time. Some lovely birds perch in TATR as the bio diversity is very rich in that area. Happy friday all!