(Last Updated on : 07/09/2015)
Pallas's Fish Eagle is an Indian Bird
with a scientific name "Haliaeetus leucoryphus
", also known as Pallas's sea eagle or band-tailed fish eagle, is a large, brownish sea-eagle. This species in India concentrates in the winter season.
Concentration of Pallas's Fish Eagle
Pallas's Fish Eagle breeds in Central Asia, between the Caspian Sea and the Yellow Sea, from Kazakhstan and Mongolia to the Himalayas
, Bangladesh and northern India. It is partially migratory, with central Asian birds wintering among the southern Asian birds in northern India, and also further west to the Persian Gulf.
Structure of Pallas's Fish Eagle
Pallas's Fish Eagle has a light brown hood over a white face. The wings are dark brown and the back rufous, darker underneath. The tail is black with a wide, distinctive white stripe. Underwings have a white band. Juveniles are overall darker with no band on the tail. It measures 72-84 cm in length with a wingspan of 180-215 cm. The females of Pallas's Fish Eagle, at 2.1-3.7 kilogram are slightly larger than males, at 2-3.3 kg (4.4-7.3 lbs). Pallas's fish eagle retains the ancestral dark eye, bill and talons of the first sea-eagles, shared with the older tropical lineage. It is peculiar insofar as it has a black band at the end of the tail in adult birds, similar to juvenile Madagascar fish eagles.
Feedings of Pallas's Fish Eagle
The diet of Pallas's Fish Eagle consists primarily of large freshwater fish. They also regularly predate water birds, including adult greylag geese, by assaulting them on the surface of the water and then flying off with the kill. Since that goose species is slightly heavier than the eagle, this is one of the greatest weight-lifting feats ever recorded for a flying bird. Another case of lifting a great load in this species is when, in the Yamuna River
in north-central India, an eagle captured a huge carp and flew with the struggling fish very low over the water, before dropping it in response to gunfire. The carp was found to have weighed 6 kg about twice the weight of the eagle carrying it.