Marsh Harrier Male

[Mrudul Godbole]

Photographed this at Haserghatta last week.

Canon 50D, 100-400mm L IS USM, ISO 200, f8.0, 1/50, hand held.

Comments and critiques welcome.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Lovely environment portrait. The eye contact is nice. This is a sharp image considering it is hand held at 1/50. Was it possible to shoot from a lower angle?

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Nice image Mrudul, was this photographed when we visited together along with Anu, in that case I may also have this.

[Mohan Raj]

Good Photo.
WIKIPEDIA
The Western Marsh-harrier (in Persian: Songhore talabi) is a mid-sized bird of prey from temperate and subtropical western Eurasia and adjacent Africa. It is also known as the Eurasian Marsh-harrier.

The Western Marsh-harrier is 42 to 56 cm in length, and has a wingspan of 115 to 140 cm. It is a large, bulky harrier with fairly broad wings, and has a strong and peculiar sexual dichromatism. The male's plumage is mostly a cryptic reddish-brown with lighter yellowish streaks, which are particularly prominent on the breast. The head and shoulders are mostly pale greyish-yellowish. The rectrices and the secondary and tertiary remiges are pure grey, the latter contrasting with the brown forewing and the black primary remiges at the wingtips. The upperside and underside of the wing look similar, though the brown is lighter on the underwing. Whether from the side or below, flying males appear characteristically three-colored brown-grey-black. The legs, feet, irides and the cere of the black bill are yellow.

The female is almost entirely chocolate-brown. The top of the head, the throat and the shoulders have of a conspicuously lighter yellowish colour; this can be clearly delimited and very contrasting, or (particularly in worn plumage) be more washed-out, resembling the male's head colors. But the eye area of the female is always darker, making the light eye stand out, while the male's head is altogether not very contrastingly colored and the female lacks the grey wing-patch and tail. Juveniles are similar to females, but usually have less yellow, particularly on the shoulders.

There is a rare hypermelanic morph with largely dark plumage. It is most often found in the east of the species' range. Juveniles of this morph may look entirely black in flight.

THANKS :)

[Mrudul Godbole]

Thanks all for the comments.

Abhishek, we shot this from the car. Mostly getting down from the car is difficult as the bird might fly off.

Praveen, Yes this is photographed on 23rd. We were together then. Do post your image too.

Mohan, thanks for the detailed information.

[Bibhav Behera]

Nice image. Would have been better if you could have got down from the car to get a lower angle. :)
Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice image. I like the eye contact. This image shows the habitat nicely. A lower angle would have ensured that the background gets blurred. If that is the objective, then the aperture should have been the widest ie. f5.6 and not f8.

Mohan: Thanks for sharing the nice information.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi