The most beautiful birds

With no doubt in my mind, Eagles and Hawks are the most beautiful birds to observe, the finer aspects of gliding, soaring and flying is what keeps me interested. In the Azraq wetland reserve I observed a Falcon in "hover" which is very different from a hummingbird hover.

Hawks, which I believe include Falcons, were an amazing site, they spread their wings in strong headwinds and had enough lift to remain in place, they also changed the angle of their wings to compensate for a decrease or an increase in wind speed, just as pilots add flaps and other high-lift devices to compensate for the decrease in airspeed and therefore the decrease in airflow. Falcons can have power dive reaching speeds up to 320 Kilometers per hour, which is the reason you see falcons shooting past you when you are in a descending aircraft.

Eagles however are an entirely different matter, the are extremely immense in size
for example the Haring Ibon or Philippine Eagle is the largest Eagle in the world with length of more than a meter and wing chord of more than 65 cms. The talon itself is more the 5.5 cms. You can only imagine why it is called, Monkey-eating Eagle, the scientific name is Pithecophaga jefferyi.

The most beautiful (subjective) and heaviest (objective) Eagle is the Harpy Eagle, it is without doubt an amazing siting if anyone is lucky enough to see one.

check it out here

That thing on the left tarsus -picture right- is the ring I talked about in the last post.








The most beautiful bird however has to be a Macaw, which is a parrot or more specifically the Scarlet Macaw, which some call the red Macaw.

I'm only expressing personal opinions here, don't bombard me with emails telling me that I missed a bird here or there.