I had thought I was witness to a display of territorial claim as the three birds circled one another, unfortunately not at an ideal distance for better identification but just enough to make out that two were Oriental Honey-buzzards, and I was glad I didn't hazard a guess about the third because I would have been wrong as a check with the Raptor Study Group revealed that all three were the same.
I supposed my hesitation about the third was because two eventually took off in the same direction and I couldn't quite remember what happened to the third because tracking the two I simply lost sight of the other one.
This was the one that went the other way.
I knew that sightings of these raptors were pretty common these days and to have them descend would be a bonus, but on this occasion, there was no such luck.
This one could be exemplary of a migrant raptor that suffered inevitable damage, eg, to their primaries which shouldn't come as a surprise in view of the threat and exhaustion these birds had had to undergo in their migration.
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