Tawny Eagle in flight, Tanzania

[Roger Clark]

This tawny eagle was catching flying termites in the early morning. Near Lake Manyara, Tanzania. (Not in the the park.)

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV camera, 300 mm L IS lens at f/3.2, 1/1250 sec, ISO 800. Crop to 13.7 megapixels.

(2,000th post)

Roger

[Harshad Barve]

Excellent image to celebrate Milestone Roger , Lake Manayara is definitely one awesome place
Love the wing pose , BG and nice techs
TFS

[Kiran Poonacha]

Congrats on your 2000 Roger, Nice image with good details and colors... but this is a Kite, not a eagle and surely not a Tawny.

[Chris van Rooyen]

Good posture and background Roger! Good sharpness as well given the relatively low SS. The species is a Yellow-billed Kite, sometimes regarded as a conspecific to the Black Kite Milvus milvus.

[Roger Clark]

Chris, Kiran,

I'm certainly no expert on ID of these birds. Our guide called them tawny eagles. My Birds of Kenya book does not have a yellow-billed-kite. Also, there was a large flock of these birds. Not all had yellow beaks. Some had darker beaks but the same wing patterns and colors. Perhaps this is a juvenile? But it does not look exactly like the small reference drawing in the Birds of Kenya book either (but the juvi tawny eagle looks close). So now I'm confused.

Roger

[Stu Bowie]

Congrats on your 2000th post Roger. When I first looked at the image, I thought this was not a tawny, but more leaning towards a YB kite. Both guys above are experts with raptors, so I would maybe go with their ID.

[Roger Clark]

OK, I've done a lot of research. First, I have to say I made the original mistake, not my guide. In going over my 9000 images from the trip, I confused this sequence with others of a tawny eagle. In going over this sequence, I had audio notes that said these were black kites. And they look like black kites I've photographed on other trips (after further review). I guess I'm still suffering from jet lag (at least that's my excuse).

So in researching on the web, yellow billed kites are sometimes called black kites. A wikipedia page says new evidence points to the yellow billed kites as a different species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-billed_Kite

So how do I tell the difference between a yellow billed kite and a black kite? Note in the flock where I photographed this kite, were many with dark bills. So could there have been a mix of yellow-billed kites and black kites?

Roger

[Chris van Rooyen]

Hi Roger

I have seen mixed flocks of YB and Black Kites here in SA, but juvenile YB's also have black bills, just to add to the confusion very difficult to tell apart I'm afraid..

OK, I've done a lot of research. First, I have to say I made the original mistake, not my guide. In going over my 9000 images from the trip, I confused this sequence with others of a tawny eagle. In going over this sequence, I had audio notes that said these were black kites. And they look like black kites I've photographed on other trips (after further review). I guess I'm still suffering from jet lag (at least that's my excuse).

So in researching on the web, yellow billed kites are sometimes called black kites. A wikipedia page says new evidence points to the yellow billed kites as a different species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-billed_Kite

So how do I tell the difference between a yellow billed kite and a black kite? Note in the flock where I photographed this kite, were many with dark bills. So could there have been a mix of yellow-billed kites and black kites?

Roger

[Roger Clark]

Hi Roger

I have seen mixed flocks of YB and Black Kites here in SA, but juvenile YB's also have black bills, just to add to the confusion very difficult to tell apart I'm afraid..

Thanks Chris, much appreciated.

Roger