langkawi magazine

Nature SECTION

First Sighting of the Nesting Mountain Hawk-Eagles in Malaysia !

At 8:45 am, birding ahead on foot along the main tar road up Gunung Raya, Cheang Kum Seng first spotted a lone raptor perching on top of a bare tree branch by the side of the road. He immediately alerted the rest of the birders and our first look and thought from afar was of a Blyth's Hawk-Eagle, Spizaetus alboniger due to its long crest and streaked breast.

Moving in within range, the agile digiscopers and digi-videoscoper began "clicking" away with their modern digi-scoping/videoscoping gears. Everybody else eventually moved nearer and took turn to have a closer examination of the perching raptor with our bins and field scopes Reference on site made to the several bird field guides that we brought along ruled out the Blyth's Hawk-Eagle, Spizaetus alboniger, and pointed to either a Mountain Hawk-Eagle, Spizaetus nipalnesis or a Wallace Hawk-Eagle, Spizaetus nanus, neither of which had ever been seen by anyone of us before.

Obviously, we were very excited, particularly on the high possibility of sighting a Mountain Hawk-Eagle based on its exceptionally long erect crest and the not less than 4 equi-spaced black bands on its undertail. Appeared calm and not perturbed by our commotion and movement in the vicinity, the raptor remained stationary on the same perch an hour later when we left the spot to continue our hill ascend in our rented cars.

It was worthwhile to put in record that while we were utterly engrossed and pre-occupied with the "Celebrity", a few of us saw a second big raptor flew in and perched higher and further back on the left, approximately 150 ft.(45 m) from the first. We could not make a proper sighting as it was substantially hidden amidst branches and leave thickets. However on brief exchange, we shared the same observation that the hidden raptor appeared to have the same field marks as the one in perch.

I drove our rented car down the hill first and made a stop at the same eagle spot at around 1:00pm. By then, the perched eagle was no where to be seen. While the rest of my passengers decided to rest and chat away in shades, I took my observations on the surrounding skyline where I eventually saw a small and a big raptor "thermalling" in the sky high above.

The smaller one in flight was positively identified to be the juvenile Crested Goshawk, accipiter trivirgatus with its distinctive white rump but I could not be positive about the bigger one in circulating flight (refer photo A6). Some minutes later, I suddenly noticed a flight movement of a large raptor amidst the forest thickets (flew in from right to left with reference to the perched eagle in the morning). However, it soon disappeared from my field of view, blocked by some trees in the background. I had a hunch then that it might perch somewhere nearby and decided to back track by foot to trace its last flight path.

My persistence was handsomely paid off as it was further up the road that I saw a huge nest high up on a horizontal tree branch. The overhead piercing skylight in the background prohibited any clear sign of nest activity through my bins. With the aid of my spotting scope that followed, I finally picked up tiny movements in the nest and finally spotted a young eagle chick (around 3 weeks old judging from its plumage) sticking its head out. Without delay, I took several "digi-shots" of the chick in the nest with high digiscoping zoom.

By that time, the rest of the birders had just arrived in another car that Dr. Chan Ah Lak was driving. It was the Doctor who decided to take a peek through my scope and managed a quick glimpse of the chick before it sank further into its nest, the rest of the participants were more eager to leave for lunch, driven by thirst and hunger under the unbearable afternoon heat.

On reaching Ipoh home from Langkawi, the selected "digi-images" of the perched eagle were hurriedly e-mailed to several of our local bird veterans and raptor experts including Dr. D. Wells. Their delightful replies confirmed that the eagle in perch was indeed the Mountain Hawk-Eagle, Spizaetus nipalensis !

The confirmation led us to suspect that both the perched eagle and the second partially-hidden one we saw might be the nesting parents of the chick due to the proximity between the adult pair and the nest. We also suspected that the act of the long, cooperative perch by one of the adult eagles was possibly a behavioural "decoy" to lure us from finding its nest/chick. Based on estimated chick growth from the numerous nesting/breeding records of similar sized raptors in Perak, such as the Blyth's Hawk-Eagles Spizaetus alboniger, Crested Honey-Buzzards Pernis ptilorhyncus, Brahminy Kites Haliastur indus etc., Lim Kim Chye, Dr. Chan Ah Lak, Dr. Chan Kai Soon, and I decided to make a follow-up trip to the eagle site at Gunung Raya, Langkawai on 18 May 2002 to try our luck.

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Langkawi 20/05/2002