Close encounters with an apex avian predator

When you are someone who is a stumble-about (oh yes, I am being self-effacing and self-deprecatory when I say that) birder, immaterial of how well you read the terrain and what the trees and the undergrowth have to tell you, immaterial of how good your field-craft is, the success you enjoy (in photography terms) is mostly a matter of a lot of luck and even lots more of persistence.

Especially so, when the bird in question is a raptor, and an apex avian predator like the Crested Serpent Eagle at that -- especially when you are birding in a locality (let me use that term fairly loosely) for the first time and have no idea of where (assuming that locality has resident CSE's) the bird likes to perch.

Immaterial of such odds, somehow J and I literally keep running into these magnificent birds during our trips, averaging at least one CSE sighting every-time.

I know that does sound freakishly lucky, and maybe it is...but there is lot more than only luck involved here. And yet, even if it were only a matter of luck, as opposed to a keen eye and an understanding of the way of birds, I will gladly take it!

Even "luck" however couldn't explain away the fact that we were averaging almost a CSE sighting daily on our recent birding trip to Uttarkhand in May...as also that, on an afternoon that was so hot that it reminded me of Hyderabad, we spotted three of these magnificent raptors, gliding over the dense forest canopy below us and then, with a stealth belying their immense wingspans, catching a thermal to swoop right over our heads!

Naturally then, we have added a "Raptor Point" to our list of places we need to return to. I say Raptor Point because we also saw any number of Lammergeirs, Himalayan Griffon Vultures and quite a few Kestrels and Shikras at that point. And, one immense Black Eagle (or so I think) -- that was totally out in the open long enough for me to shoot a couple of bursts -- that I missed because I activated AF too early.

So, someday again, we will be there at the Raptor Point. Till then, we have enough memories of close encounters with these apex avian predators -- to keep our pulses racing.

                                                      The lord of all it surveys!

                                                    Badass, really badass; no?

                                       See that wing-spread; and that look in its eye!