Lesser Fish-Eagle Ichthyophaga humilis (Muller and Schlegel) 1841

Lesser Fish-Eagle Ichthyophaga humilis (Muller and Schlegel) 1841

Other Name: Lesser Fishing Eagle, Himalayan Grey Headed Fishing Eagle

Resident (NT)

Status and distribution

Common resident (up to 300m) throughout Peninsula south to Johore. Species occur in inland lake system, river and also forest waterway. This species can occur in higher number in certain location where good habitat is available as recorded in Temmenggor Lake. This species is also much commoner compare to the latter species however, never recorded in coastal area.

Description

Greyish head and necked. Upperpart brown to dark brown with blackish or dark brown flight feather. Underpart brown lower breast to mid of body before cut off by white on thigh, vent and belly. Tail brown. In flight, blackish brown flight feather with brown underwing covert. Eye yellow, leg and feet pale yellow. Bill dark with gape and cere blusih.

Juvenile:Pale brown above. Throat and breast pale brown with breast indistinctly streaked sometimes unmarked. Thigh, vent and belly pale brown. In flight, form white on inner wed with narrow dark band across secondaries to primaries.

Confusion Species

Very easily confuse to Grey-Headed Fish Eagle. At rest wing of the Lesser Fish Eagle both adult and juvenile reaching the tail tip while the Grey-Headed Fish Eagle are short of tail tip. Distinctively barred dark terminal band with white subterminal band are good characteristic especially in flight. Juvenile of the Grey Headed Fish Eagle are more heavily marked and streak. Check habitat.

Geographical Variation

I.h.humilis only known subspecies (Wells 1990 & Fuguson-Lee 2001)

Behaviour

Tend to observed to hunt singly even though nesting. In large lake it was observed to practice soaring hunting method. In river area and location where perch are available, the Lesser Fish Eagle was observed to detect its prey from the perch itself. In many observation bird are observed hunting between 930am-1045am. The species are known for perching hunter. There have no documentation for soaring hunting documented as of date. Observation in Taman Negara remain bird hunting from still perch. It is documented the species hunt in pair in water body area (lake) however this is not observed in large river area. Observation for example in Kinabatangan and Taman Negara show hunting were singly.

Diet were strictly fish (Naroaji 2006), however there is one record showing pierce on due to snake bite may have suggest that this species also hunt for swimming fish (Well 1990)

Habitat

Lake, forested river, large river system and also in smaller stream. None observed in coastal. Riparian area adjacent to river may have been a good habitat and worth conserving as species are related to river.

Breeding

Raptor nest was observed between 20-30m above ground. Tree have never been observed to be emerging and nest always situated below canopy. Nest always situated near water body. Breeding record began in Feb-June (Naroaji 2006) which is rather similar to P.Malaysia. Other document for this species in breeding are poorly documented.

Photo

https://naturecore.blogspot.com/2013/08/ncrru-lesser-fish-eagle-nikon-p90-eye.html

Reference

Ben F.King & Edwards C.Dickson, 1989, A Field Guide To The Birds of South-East Asia, Collins, Grafton Street, London

Betram E.Smythies 2001, The Birds of Burma, Natural History Publication, Kota Kinabalu (ISBN 983-812-049-9)

Craig Robson, 2017, A Field Guide To The Birds of South-East Asia, Bloomsburry, London

Del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A & Sargatal,J eds, 1997, Handbook to Birds of The World Vol 1, Lynx Edicions, Bercolona, Collins, Grafton Street, London

Susan Myers, 2009, A Field Guide To The Birds of Borneo, Talisman, Singapore

Boonsong Lekagul & Philip D.Round, 1991, A guide to the Birds of Thailand, Saha Karn Bhaet Co., Ltd Bangkok

David R Wells, 1999, Birds of The Thai Malay Peninsula Vol 1, Academic Press, London UK

James Fergusan Lee and David A Christie 2001, Raptors of The World, Christopher Helm, Great Britian (ISBN 0-618-12762-3)

Rishad Naoroji 2007, Birds of Prey of the Indian Subcontinent, OM Book International, New Delhi (ISBN 8187107699)