Sky Hunters

I chose to do a sincere tribute to the beautiful, elegant, often magnificent birds of prey that live on every continent except Antarctica. For too long, too many of these birds have been feared and misunderstood. They've been harassed, hunted, poisoned. trapped and robbed of their nesting sites. This is tragic. They do immense favor to benefit agriculture as well as urban life, by hunting rats, mice, voles, shrews and plant devouring insects. For most of these birds, this is their principal diet. There are raptors that live almost exclusively on fish, lizards or snakes of all varieties, including venomous snakes. I began my research in 2014. Hundreds and hundreds of hours have been utilized to research books and journals, printed between the late 18th Century and the first quarter of the 20th Century. I've studied publications written in English, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish and Swedish, taking note of increasing knowledge in ornithology, and the more advanced progress resulting in the evolutionary process, genetic morphology, biological differences resulting in closely related subspecies and the chromatic changes and patterns in plumage as the birds moult and age. In time, I'll add many, many images for Bazas, Besras, Buzzards, Caracaras, Eagles, Falcons, Hawks, Kestrels, Kites, Ospreys, Secretary Birds, Seriamas and Shikras. I'm going to let someone else work on Condors, Owls and Vultures. I had to set a boundary somewhere! Anytime you go online and type in, Eagle, what do you see? The Bald Eagle, and more images than I'd want to count. I intend to present the other Eagles; each a natural treasure in their own way. I hope you like the visible results!