West-central and Northwest Thailand, Feb/March 2016 |
From February 21 - March 05, 2016, Sheridan, Willlie Sekula and I spent fifteen days in the west-central, north-central, and northwest parts of Thailand, expertly led by Dave Sargeant of Chiang Mai.
We visited Pak Thale, Laem Pak Bia, Nong Pla Lai,
Kaeng Krachan, Bueng Boraphet, Mai Ping, Doi Inthanon, Mae Taeng, Chiang Dao, Fang, Doi Lang, and Doi Ang Kang.
This small eagle was at Nong Pla Lai on February
22, and we tentatively IDed it as an intermediate-morph Booted Eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus). However, some features seemed odd for this ID, namely the apparent lack of tarsal feathering (but this is hard to assess from these poor images), sandy-golden head and neck, and pale greater primary and secondat underwing coverts that contrast strongly with the dark but warm-toned basal underwing coverts and the colder dusky secondaries. We'd value feedback on this bird:
