Hoax, hoax, hoax.

A couple of largish birds in the second photo by my guess, 10 foot wingspan MAX.

What bugs me more, though, is the bird’s apparent indifference to the fact it’s got these two interlopers in its airspace - the one in the distance and the one shooting the pic’.

I’m also struck by the difference in the light/shade distribution between the bird and the visible plane.

The angle of the light hitting the bird seems, at least to me, to correspond with the angle of the light hitting the landscape, a sort of midday, directly overhead look, whereas the angle of the light hitting the plane is more at an angle, as if it’d been shot earlier in the day when the sun was still rising, say.

My suspicion is therefore the visible plane’s been photoshopped in to give the illusion of greater size.

As to the second pic’, one of the things I always watch out for is too much unnecessary detail from the submitter: in this case, “I was too surprised to take a second pic”. This chap’s just told us he was aware of the birds suddenly appearing, which was presumably his motivation for taking the shot, yet he was too surprised to take a second one?

If he’d said he was too afraid of his battery running out to take a second shot that would’ve chimed better, but until he pointed out he didn’t take a second shot I hadn’t even noticed there was only one pic’ - but the fact he was bothered enough to try to explain away why there was only one shot meant it bugged him, and that bugs me.

But even that wouldn’t matter quite so much if his other details don’t quite match up.

He tells us he shot the pic’ from his terrace, and implies the coconut trees in the pic’ are hundreds of feet high, yet we’re able to see much of the upper surface of even the highest leaves, something only explicable - to me at least - if his terrace has a very elevated position, but if he’s shooting from an elevated position, then the height of the trees as gauges of scale is far less relevant, and therefore an unnecessary detail.

Finally, he tells us he shot the pic’ at noon. Now allowing for the possibility that in his part of the world noon doesn’t necessarily mean the sun is directly overhead yet - which fits with the angle the light seems to be hitting the trees’ leaves at - what I’m struck by is the ‘holding pattern’ of the two birds: for birds supposedly randomly flying in and out of the pic’ in different directions, they’re remarkably close together; they’re positioned, in fact, more as if they’re riding the same powerful thermal of rising, twisting hot air, the sort of powerful vortex I’d expect to develop much later in the day than ‘early’ noon.

And that’s where the other possibly unnecessary detail comes in: if they are riding a vortex - and here let’s set aside the matter of what time of day such a vortex’d develop - then rather than suddenly hoving into view long enough to allow a pic’ of them to be taken before passing overhead and leaving (before a second one could be taken), they’re in fact not only effectively dawdling on the spot, but they’re at a distance and never over the head of the taker.

But that’s only how things SEEM to me.

If there’s a palm 100 feet high in that second shot I’ll eat my hat. I am an expert in perspective, as I’ve been alive for almost five decades and seen a lot of stuff. And I don’t have to be familiar with “all the flora in Kerala, India.” Just have to be familiar with one, the one in that shot, the coconut palm. Every tree.

Another thing essential in any science: an identification guide.