Black Baza & The Praying Mantis

The Black Baza (Aviceda leuphotes) is one of the common winter visitor that can be found in open country and wooded areas.

They are usually found in small flock and fly from tree to tree, they usually stays on top of the tree and I hardly see them stay at one tree for longer than 3 minutes. According to "Singapore Biodiversity", Black Baza feeds mostly on insects, especially beetles. I have never been able to see or photograph feeding Black Baza until last Sunday at Bidadari.  

For the first time, I managed to get close to this bird to see what this bird is hunting & consume it. It was a huge Praying Mantis!

Their feeding behaviour very similar to other smaller birds, they bite off the head of their prey before consume the rest of their prey.