Changeable Hawk Eagle nesting Part ll !

For some good reasons, I am holding back the posting of the closeup shots of Changeable Hawk Eagle's chick. It is growing real fast and fledging soon, and here are few shots taken last week. I was quite shocked to see its size almost as big as the adult just within a few days. 

And according to another worker I spoke to yesterday, the correct birth of the chick was 8th Feb (almost the same as mine!!), so if the 60-75days is the norm for fledging (according to the info i gathered in google), this chick could leave as early as next weekend!  

All pics (cropped 60%) above were taken with Kenko TC2 

on the 500mmF4, which gives an EFL of 1000mm on

 my DSLR.

I measured the height of the nesting, and it's sitting at 43' from the the ground and a quick survey of the surrounding i realized indeed the nesting was build close to a stream, in line with some of the findings for CHE's nesting. Other similar finding was fresh leaves were laid on the nest, probably to keep the chick warm at night as well as cushioning effect.

The stream is right behind the row of banana trees, as shown in the dotted line.

Feeding was mostly by the pale morph and the dark morph spent much of the time guarding its chick nearby. 

One interesting observation was if the female adult did not return by dawn, the male adult would make repetitive loud calls presumably yelling for her return. And if the female did not return with food, the male would hunt for lizard or rat nearby to feed for itself as well as the chick.  

I have no where to tell which is the male/female so I am assuming the pale morph as the female and the dark morph as the male here, unless someone tell me otherwise.

There are quite a few species occurred here such as the Pink-necked Pigeon, Black-naped Oriole, White-collared Kingfisher as well as Brown Shrike, besides the usual Mynah, Dove and Crows. But the biggest surprise was the Banded Bay Cuckoo. Its calls were heard frequently around 6pm but unfortunately I have not sighted it yet.

So when I heard the BB Cuckoo calls on the 26th, I was excited and immediately scanned the whole 10acres of durian plantation on foot but instead I saw an Indian Cuckoo!!

It looks like I will be visiting this durian plantation more often soon that I had thought earlier!

Indian Cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus)

Sewah India * 四声杜鹃 * セグロカッコウ * Bắt cô trói cột

 Coucou à ailes courtes *  kukucka krátkokrídla * Индийская кукушка * นกคัคคูพันธุ์อินเดีย