white-bellied fish eagle @ SBWR from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.
“This (I think) juvenile White-bellied Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) settled on a dead tree at the edge of Pulau Buloh [in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve]. It had just caught a fish and quickly started on its breakfast. It gripped the fish with its right leg talons whist the left leg secured the bird onto the tree. The bird pecked at the fish and discarded what must be bits of scale and bones. Small chunks can be seen being dropped by the bird. The entire meal took about 20 minutes before the eagle flew off (or maybe when it dropped the rest of the fish). The video clip shows the better part of about 17 minutes. The last few minutes were not recorded as a Paradise Tree Snake had made its appearance on the same platform and this certainly diverted attention away from the eagle which did not seem to be doing anything different from the preceding quarter of an hour.
“(There is some distortion throughout the clip as there was a lot of movement by other visitors on the wooden platform and this vibration was transmitted through the tripod to the camera. If you find the audio distracting, please turn off the volume. There was too much distracting human audio input which needed to be replaced.)”
Andy Dinesh
Singapore
4th December 2011