Eagle, Changeable Hawk (juvenile pale morph)-Sunderbans Diary

[Vipin Sharma]

Changeable Hawk (juvenile pale morph): - The sexes are similar but the female is slightly larger. The juvenile (pale morph) is distinct, with its head and under parts largely white. Juveniles begin to breed in the third year and become fully adult in fourth year or later. The adult pale morph is brown above, with pale edges, especially on wing coverts. The pale brown tail has a thin whitish tip, broad blackish sub terminal band and three to four other narrower, browner and often much more obscure bars. The white to buff area of the throat to breast and upper belly and flanks are more or less boldly streaked with black to dark brown.
The adult dark morph is entirely blackish-brown, including the upper tail, the inner half being greyer.
The wings are shorts, with the wing tips about one-third to half down tail; tail long and thinly-banded. Legs are long, feathered; appearing spindly because of the short tibia feathering.
The bird was perched very far from our boat , 800mm lens should have been the ideal for the distance he/she was sitting.

Canon 7D , Shooting Mode Shutter-Priority AE , Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/1000 , Av( Aperture Value ) 6.3 , Metering Mode Evaluative Metering , , Exposure Compensation 0 , ISO Speed 1600 , , Auto ISO Speed OFF , Lens 150-500mm, Focal Length 500.0mm

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice sighting. Liked the perch and the eye contact. I feel a rectangular or a vertical framing, than the present square one would enhance the image further. Thanks for sharing the detailed information about the species. Look forward to more from Sunderban.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice to see this. Reducing the saturation would be better.