Birds of Prey

Most featured species are ‘Red List 2019’ assessed as ‘Least Concern’. Exceptions are the Grey-headed Fish Eagle, Red Kite and Andean Condor, listed as ‘Near Threatened’ and the Galapagos Hawk listed as ‘Vulnerable’.

Most raptors and Osprey exhibit reverse size dimorphism where the females are larger than males. New World Vultures only exhibit minimal plumage and size dimorphism; an exception is an Andean Condor which shows a higher degree of plumage dimorphism. It’s difficult to identify gender when photographing lone individuals.

Two of my favourite raptor species are the endemic Galapagos Hawk because it is one of the few endemic raptors. And the White-bellied Sea Eagle that starts with brown plumage changing to white at the age of five to six. A supplementary gallery below shows the plumage of juvenile, immature and adult birds.

Crested or Oriental Honey-buzzard identification of subspecies is difficult because there are several morphs of the. I think the male is a ‘dark morph’ and the female a ‘normal morph’, probably both ssp torquatus. Males have dark eyes, while females have yellow eyes.

I photographed a female Variable Hawk, ‘pale morph’ at 3812m in the Antisana Ecological Reserve in Ecuador’s high Andes. This high-altitude subspecies occurs between 2800m-5000m. The bird had just pounced on a small animal and was flying away with its prey.

I’ve photographed the displayed species in habitats that included gardens, forest, woodland, often near fresh or saltwater in Australia, England, Singapore, Trinidad, Ecuador, Galapagos and New Zealand. Some species were breeding residents, while others were migratory or seasonal visitors.