นกเหยี่ยวภูเขา Mountain Hawk - eagle

Mountain Hawk - eagle เป็น Raptor กลางขนาดใหญ่ประมาณ 70-72 เซนติเมตร ตัวเต็มวัยโดยทั่วไปมีสีน้ำตาล




MOUNTAIN HAWK EAGLE
( Spizaetus Nipalensis )

RACES = S.n nipalensis, S.n kelaarti


LOCAL NAMES = Kanda panthiong, Kanzha chil ( Lepcha ), Reijore ( Sikkim ), Maha konde rajaliya ( Sinhala ), Periya konde rasali, Kalugu ( Tamil )

A short-winged, long-tailed forest eagle of the hilly tracts in the Himalaya, the Mountain Hawk Eagle is found mainly at and around a height of 9000 feet, though have benn found many nesting at 5000 feet above sea level.Plentiful among the pine forests of these mountains.

Mountain Hawk-Eagle is by far the most handsome Hawk-Eagle in this part of the world. It hold aloft a crested or plumed head, with a dark chin-stripe, the juvenile Hill Eagle is rufous brown on the nape of the neck, and every successive moult sees a darkeningin colour. One of my friends eagles grew to be very dark in eight years. In thejuvenile stage, this raptor has an almost bare crop with elongated spots scantily scattered over its breast and belly. After a few moults, the striated spots are replaced with white spotted bars in what can be described as butterfly markings. Theolder birds has feather edgings on its wing coverts and rump, as also a barred tail. The slender beak runs true to the Hawk Eagle family, quite unlike the powerful beak of the Bonelli. The long crest feathers are 9 to 10 cm long in adult Eagles. The crest is lowered prior to an attack, at most times, it stands upright. Another distinguishing feature is that the feathers on its legs continue not only to the top of its toes, but in between the toes as well.

The southern race ( S. n kelaarti ) is similar, differing only in smaller size.

In the wild S. Nipalensis adopts the 'still hunting' methos of killing food. However, in spite of its huge size have often seen it take off from the top of a ridge in pursuit of a flock of parakeets flying downhill, and grab one. For a big eagle, it is surprisingly swift. Takes a large range of prey from mammals to large game the Mountain Hawk-Eagle is undoubtedly responsible for the killing of game birds as junglefowl, peafowl, pheasant & chikore partridge. At the same time, it is responsible for the eliminating of harmful and destructive animals such as pine-marten, the jungle cat, and fox that are notorious game-birds killers. Observed an adult killing and carrying off a yellow-throated marten. In this, the Mountain Hawk-Eagle renders exemplary service to wildlife conservation and the proper management of game-birds.

Immediately following capture, it does nothing to dispel the impression of being an intransigent bird. But it soon loses its fear of man and then the Mountain Hawk-Eagle is very tame and gentle indeed. All the birds that have been trained would alight almost tenderly on our gloved fist when called, quite unlike the thumping landing of most of our Bonelli's eagles. In the hunting field, they were always very well-behaved and impressive. When we bade them follow us, they would fly from tree to tree in our wake, and if a hare was flushed, they would be after it like smoke. One Mountain Hawk-Eagle would occasionally soar sky-high but the moment we whistled and held up our gloved fist, it would immediately swing out of the blue to alight on our extended hand.