Hi,
These pictures were taken with a pocket camera (Canon S90) inside the Mvog-betsi Zoo terrain in Yaounde on September 23 last month (unfortunately left my proper camera gear in the hotel). This (wild) raptor had just caught a red-eyed dove and landed on a tree some 10 meters away from us.
I watched the bird with my binoculars for some 20-30 seconds and then took the photos. The bird stayed only about 45 seconds. A bit later I saw the same bird perched and in flight for a short time further away (about 100 meters distance)
I noticed the following:
- legs seemed feathered all the way down suggesting an eagle, but not 100%
sure about his. The lowest part of the legs was obscured.
- medium to "smaller large" size, I guess about 45 cm in height
- breast appeared completely white (faintly creamy tinge), no barring or
streaking, only a few black spots on the side of the breast where the wing
is attached to the body and the lower part of the neck ; the back, upperwings, back of the neck all appeared "milk chocolate" colored.
- the lower face parts were completely white, but gradually changed to "milk
chocolate brown" towards the crown and neck.
- yellow eye
- fairly broad black bar a the end of the tail (cannot really be seen well on the picture) and faint narrow black barring on the rest of the tail (maybe
something like 2-3 narrow bars). The underwings were white with black barring, but views were too short to be able to describe the patterns well. The tail pattern and underwing details were only seen reasonably well for about 2-3 seconds.
I have got some ideas what bird it could be but don't want to bias too much beforehand.
Thanks for any help with ID-ing this bird.
Cheers,
Sjef
These pictures were taken with a pocket camera (Canon S90) inside the Mvog-betsi Zoo terrain in Yaounde on September 23 last month (unfortunately left my proper camera gear in the hotel). This (wild) raptor had just caught a red-eyed dove and landed on a tree some 10 meters away from us.
I watched the bird with my binoculars for some 20-30 seconds and then took the photos. The bird stayed only about 45 seconds. A bit later I saw the same bird perched and in flight for a short time further away (about 100 meters distance)
I noticed the following:
- legs seemed feathered all the way down suggesting an eagle, but not 100%
sure about his. The lowest part of the legs was obscured.
- medium to "smaller large" size, I guess about 45 cm in height
- breast appeared completely white (faintly creamy tinge), no barring or
streaking, only a few black spots on the side of the breast where the wing
is attached to the body and the lower part of the neck ; the back, upperwings, back of the neck all appeared "milk chocolate" colored.
- the lower face parts were completely white, but gradually changed to "milk
chocolate brown" towards the crown and neck.
- yellow eye
- fairly broad black bar a the end of the tail (cannot really be seen well on the picture) and faint narrow black barring on the rest of the tail (maybe
something like 2-3 narrow bars). The underwings were white with black barring, but views were too short to be able to describe the patterns well. The tail pattern and underwing details were only seen reasonably well for about 2-3 seconds.
I have got some ideas what bird it could be but don't want to bias too much beforehand.
Thanks for any help with ID-ing this bird.
Cheers,
Sjef
