Changeable Hawk Eagles

The distinctive shrill calls from a pair of Changeable Hawk Eagles or spizatus cirrhatus can be frequently heard amidst the dense trees at Mount Faber. It is one of my favorite birding spots. It's got heaps of bird life packed into a small accessible area and best of all; it's just a stone throw from where I work.

I use to wonder why they were called Hawk Eagles. It's an intermediate Asiatic species between hawks and eagles. And as the name changeable suggest, these medium large raptors have very variable plumage from nearly black in the dark morph phase to nearly white. The resident pair in the Mount Faber area had a sort of handsome brown semi chestnut plumage.

A large nest of stick was built on the top tier of a very tall tree that stood almost under the shadow of the cable car station. Mum and dad hawk eagles stood guard over their single eaglet chick so I set up my hide a good distance away on the spur of a hill. Photographing eagles is usually a long distance effort. I had to tune my bird scope to about 40X to get a close up shot of the chick and hand hold my digital camera over the scope's aperture. This expedient photographic technique is called "digiscoping" and can produce decent results.

Each visit to the area show good progress as the Changeable Hawk Eagles watch over their charge. Often one hawk eagle will perch on the "perimeter" some 200m from the nest. Those sharp eagle eyes don't missed anything and sometimes feathers will ruffle up as a warning sign to the "barbarians at the gate".

The eaglet quickly became a fully grown fledgling and seems eager to get out of the nest. It finally took to perching on the branches around the nest. In no time I return to find both the nest and tree empty. The shrill hawk eagle calls still echo in the area. So marks another successful breeding effort to keep the Singapore population of this beautiful bird growing and healthy.

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