Juvenile Bateleur Eagle

[Morkel Erasmus]

I'm still working my way through a mountain of images created last year.

This juvenile Bateleur eagle was captured outside the Nossob camp in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. They are beautiful birds when in adult plumage, the beak turning red, the body turning black with grey and white patches on the wings.

All comments welcome. This was taken at midday so I applied a cooling filter and increased saturation as the Kalahari sun can kill colour when it's hot like this. I also did some shadow recovery on the body.

Techs:
Canon 40D with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 400mm
f5.6 @ 1/1600 SS @ ISO-320

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Mork, good DOF, and I like the eye contact. Yes it is amazing how differently these guys look in adulthood. You have done exceptionally well considering the light.

[Marc Mol]

Nice work, given the unfavourable light Morkel, shadow detail has held up well.
I believe they don't reveal their true colors until around 3/4 yrs?
TFS

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Stu & Marc...

Marc - that would explain the reason one sees so many 'juveniles' :)