Daily Archives: July 22, 2022

Black Hawk Eagle

Black Hawk Eagle: Canopy Tower, Panama, July 2022 — As we were driving down from the Tower on my first full birding day at Canopy Tower in Panama, I glimpsed a raptor sitting in a dead snag across the sharp little valley of the stream that that road follows down, silhouetted against the overcast sky. My immediate reaction was Crested Hawk Eagle as, at the moment I saw it, it had its crest raised. (The Crested Hawk Eagle is actually an African Bird…though the name was commonly used for what is now called the Ornate Hawk Eagle in Central America.) We were in the Canopy Tower Birdmobile…a 4 wheel drive pick-up with two bench seats mounted back to back in the open bed of the truck, facing left and right. I pounded on the roof of the cab and called out Hawk Eagle to make the driver stop. We backed up until we re-found the gap in the foreground foliage that gave us the best view of the bird. It was, indeed, a Hawk Eagle, and it did have a crest…but it was the Black Hawk Eagle…and perched…a rare sight indeed! The photo is not great…but the bird was far away against the cloudy sky in poor light and barely visible through foreground foliage…so, all in all, after some serious post-processing, I am pleased with a record shot. There would be people who doubted we saw what we saw without it 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. (In the original the bird is so heavily silhouetted that you can see no detail at all, and tiny in the frame.) ISO 250 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Plus 1EV exposure compensation.