The White-bellied Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) is a great fishing bird. It sits quietly on a high perch near water and patiently waits. The moment it spots a fish swimming near the surface of the water nearby, it immediately takes flight and zoomed in on the target. Once within grabbing distance, it pounces on the fish, barely breaking the water surface (left). Normally, only its feet and legs get immersed in the water. But once in a while more of the bird may be submerged, sometimes even the entire bird.

Once caught within the powerful grasp of its talons, the fish is carried with one foot back to its favourite perch to be eaten (bottom).

The sea eagle feeds mainly on aquatic vertebrates like reptiles (sea snakes, small turtles and tortoises), fish, water birds (gulls, terns, young of herons, ducks, geese), crustaceans and small mammals. But it is an opportunistic feeder. Once in a while it snatches fruit bats from their roosts. It has also been known to catch a rat that was swimming near the coast off Changi.

The bird has a pair of long, broad wings that are an advantage for soaring and gliding. They also come in useful in providing lift, especially after catching a heavy load of fish, as seen the the images below. The tail is just a slender appendage and wedged. Its main function is mainly to assist in maneuvering and steering within confined spaces like in a forest. But sea eagle hunting mostly in open water does not need to manoeuver.

The feet of the bird is stout and strong, with long, prominently curved claws, the better to grip on to the slippery fish. After grabbing the fish from the surface of the water with its left foot, the powerful down stroke of the wings provide instant lift (below).

Subsequent powerful flappings of the wings allowed it to rise well above the water (below). It flew to its perch where the fish was consumed.

Input by YC and images by Chan Yoke Meng.

Black-shouldered Kite (Elanus caeruleus) usually hunts from a perch. The bird spends long periods sitting on a branch of a tall tree in the early morning and late afternoon waiting for a prey. As it sits there, its tail is constantly cocking.

The moment a prey is spotted it drops silently, feet fully extended and wings raised high. It may descend in one long drop or often in two or three stages, hovering in between (left top).

Just before it touches the ground, it makes a fast grab at the prey with its sharp talons, killing it almost at once (left middle). The prey can either be eaten in flight or carried back to a perch (left bottom). With its sharp bill it tears the prey into pieces and swallows it.

Its favourite food includes mice, lizards, snakes, frogs and larger insects.

The kite also forages while flying above ground, frequently stopping to hover. It also hawks locusts and other swarming insects in flight.

At around 6.30 pm on 10th March 2007 I heard the calling of the Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea) coming from my garden. Going out to check, I located a pair of male birds perching on a branch of my terap (Artocarpus odoratissimus) tree. They were duetting. At first they were just sitting peacefully, preening and calling intermittently. Then they turned and faced each other, moving closer.

One bird would lower his head to the level of the branch he was perching on and immediately raise it. This would elicit a similar response from the other bird. At times the other bird would have his head below the branch. This would go for a few times before one of them would give out a loud “kwok-kwok-kwok”

The charade went on for more than half an hour with intermittent loud cries before the birds became gently aggressive (above). One or the other would lunge forward taking the other by surprise to nearly displacing him from the branch. Soon the aggression became violent as one bird attacked the other with wings flapping, tail feathers fanned out and bill agape (below). Under such an attack the other bird naturally retreated and soon both were out of their perch.

By 7.00 pm it was getting dark and the birds became more and more aggressive. They were chasing each other, as evidenced from the loud flapping of their wings and sounds of their jumping from branch to branch, accompanied by loud cries. The aggression appeared to be simply a put-on, limited to mere threats as there were no actual bodily contacts.

About an hour after the birds arrived, when it was actually dark, they suddenly flew off noisily to probably confront each other elsewhere. Or maybe to roost?

Was this a confrontation by two male birds to establish their pecking order? Was it mere play?

An earlier post on a pair of male koels duetting did not end in aggression.

An earlier posting reported on the 10-year breeding cycle of a pair of the Oriental Honey-buzzard (Pernis ptilorhyncus torquatus) in Perak, Malaysia.

The female was mainly involved in the incubation of the eggs, although the male occasionally helped. She sat quietly in the nest, with only the tail and occasionally the top of the head visible. A string of calls was often heard, presumably when she felt the presence of danger. This may be to alert her mate. Length of incubation was extimated as 42-47 days.

Once the chicks were hatched, the adults became protective. Most of the time an adult would be by the nest, either to keep off prey or to provide shelter from the sun or rain. The male would deliver the food and feed the chicks.

Larvae of bees (Apis cerana) and honeycombs were the favourite food brought to the chicks in the nest as well as the fledglings. Other food eaten by the adults and juveniles included a green tree snake, bird nestlings, and grubs taken off the bark of trees.

The honey-buzzard would typically stay on a high perch patiently waiting for a prey to appear. It would then zoomed in for the kill. It also made regular raids on beehives and bird nests.

The above has been abstracted from a paper “Observations on the breeding ecology of Oriental Honey Buzzard Pernia ptilorhyncus torquatus in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia” that Chiu Sein Chiong presented at the Asian Raptor Research and Conservation Network’s 4th Asian Raptor Symposium held in Taiping, Perak, Malaysia in October 2005. KC has been instrumental in getting the above blogged. Images, from top: 4 weeks old chick (Chiu Sein Chiong), 6 weeks plus chick (Chiu Sein Chiong), fledgling (Connie Khoo).

The Oriental Honey-buzzard (Pernis ptilorhyncus torquatus) is an uncommon resident of Peninsular Malaysia. This subspecies has always been presumed to be breeding but there have been no records until only recently.

A pair of this subspecies had apparently made their home within the grounds of the Royal Perak Golf Club in Ipoh, Malaysia since 1998. This is a suburban area with plenty of old trees. The surrounding areas are similarly covered with mature trees making it conducive for the pair to live and breed.

The birds were presumed to be breeding in 1998 as an adult and a juvenile were first spotted in October. Later, a nest was discovered in a tembusu tree (Fagraea fragrans) within the grounds of the club.

Since then, there was at least one nesting every year, although in 2003 and 2005 there were a second nesting. So far a total of ten breeding sessions had been recorded up to 2005.

The image aove shows an adult male while that on the right, an adult female.

The nests were always built about 18-24 metres above ground. The birds preferred old, mature trees, especially tembusu trees, although there were cases of nesting in angsana (Pterocarpus indicus) and acacia (Acacia auriculiformis) trees. These are all popular wayside trees.

Nest building usually occurred in the morning mainly, although the birds also worked for shorter periods in the afternoon and evening during the early stages. The male usually collected nesting materials, breaking off twigs with his bill. With larger twigs he would use his body, flapping his wings to help break off the branch. The pieces were brought to the waiting female, gripped in his feet. Only twice did the birds reused the old nest.

Juveniles (left) from the pervious season had been observed trying to help in nest building but invariable they were rebuffed by the adults.

Sometimes the birds were observed to start building their nest in a particular tree to later change their mind and chose another tree. There was a case when two to three trees were chosen before the nest was completed in a final tree.

The period between courtship and the fledgling of the chick varied from four to five-and-a-half months. In most seasons this period covered September to March except for 2003 (January-April) and 2005 (April-August) when there were a second nesting.

The above has been abstracted from a paper “Observations on the breeding ecology of Oriental Honey Buzzard Pernia ptilorhyncus torquatus in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia” that Chiu Sein Chiong presented at the Asian Raptor Research and Conservation Network’s 4th Asian Raptor Symposium held in Taiping, Perak, Malaysia in October 2005. Images of female and juvenile birds by KC Tsang, male bird by Connie Khoo. KC has been instrumental in getting the above blogged.