Gray-headed Fish-Eagle

Fierce-looking brown-and-white fish-eater. Note adult’s contrasting white belly and white tail with a broad black bar across the tip. Juvenile is paler overall, with a streaked brown breast and barred underwings. Smaller Lesser Fish-Eagle has a less contrasting tail pattern and typically a more jagged-edged white belly patch in adults; juveniles average paler below overall. Gray-headed forages around rivers, lakes, and swamplands. Vocal; often detected by its hoarse yelping screams.

In Sri Lanka, the Grey-headed Fish Eagle primarily inhabits areas near large water bodies like rivers, lakes, reservoirs, irrigation tanks, and coastal lagoons, often found in lowland forests, particularly where they can easily access fish as their primary food source; due to its preference for irrigation tanks, it is sometimes called the "tank eagle" in the country.

In Sri Lanka, the Grey-headed Fish Eagle primarily feeds on fish, making it a piscivore, often hunting from perches near water bodies like irrigation tanks and snatching fish with its powerful talons; occasionally, it may also eat small reptiles, birds, and small mammals as part of its diet.