Kadoorie Farm and Botanical Gardens do a lot of good work for animal rescue in Hong Kong. This is a crested serpent eagle (Spilornis cheela), a medium-sized bird of prey, that has been at the farm for some time. she was called Shan, but has since passed away since these photos were taken.
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These lovely birds have a large looking head with long feathers on the back of the head giving them a maned and crested appearance. The face is bare and yellow joining up with the - word for today: ceres (This is a waxy structure called a cere -from the Latin cera, which means "wax"- which covers the base of their bill. The cere is typically bare and often brightly colored).
Here is a juvenile...
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![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/618ad6_5b1980e8e7dc43f5bfc446c289afb129~mv2_d_2580_3870_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_147,h_221,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/618ad6_5b1980e8e7dc43f5bfc446c289afb129~mv2_d_2580_3870_s_4_2.jpg)
You can also see the powerful feet are unfeathered and heavily scaled. They fly over the forest canopy on broad wings and can often heard calling with a loud, piercing and familiar three or two-note call.
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