Raptors

Raptors are one of my favourite types of animals. They look very confident in everything they do, even when they fly away.

That is the problem for me since I don't have any high end zoom lens. So it's very hard to get close enough for a nice capture.

So I need to take my chances, when I get an opportunity once in a while. Most of the time in zoos or at bird shows.

This "Harris hawk" I saw at a birdshow, near an old water fortress. It is not a native species here in Holland, but she looks cool.

She was one of 5 birds at the show, but the other birds were more shy.

My favourite raptor will be, the "Philippine eagle" even though I haven't seen one in real life. So if somebody knows where I can see it, close to Manilla please post it in a comment.

 Nr2 on my list of Philippine raptors, is the "Brahminy kite". I did spotted one of those in the wild, when we just arrived at the "Chocolate hills" in Bohol.

The one we saw was flying and too far, to capture with my camera. But at least I saw one in the wild.

Later that day we saw three of them in captivity, at some the places with "Tarsiers".

The one on my pictures, is hold in a cage with the biggest python of Bohol.

The way they are kept, isn't as good as they deserve.

Well they still get enough food, otherwise their owners don't have anything to show tourists like me.

Because the storyteller, who went in to the python as a man and came out as a woman. Wouldn't be a good enough attraction to attract all the tourists.

At Palawan we didn't see any raptors in the wild. We saw kingfishers, egrets and manny crabs but no raptors.

But during our day tour, arround "Puerto princesa", we visited the Crocodile farm.

They don't have just crocodiles, but actually it is a small zoo. So if you ever go there, after the tour walk arround through the forrest behind it.

When I was there they had even a "Crested serpent eagle". This bird was not healthy enough to go back into the wild.

In one of the cages all the way in the back, we found the next bird.

The "Chocolate hawk owl" is a small hawk owl, which is commonly found in almost every island of the Philippines; ironically, except in Palawan.

There were a few of them in the cage, they weren't shy at all. This one was even posing for me.