Martial Eagle - Polemaetus bellicosus
...Is the bird on the left. This was taken at very long range with a 400 mm lens. The picture before it has been blown up and cropped is below.
Thankfully these are black and white birds with distinctive spotting so I was able to make it out with some bookwork and deliberation with Lorenzo. The bird on the right is some type of Snake Eagle that might deserve its own post - I haven't checked back to see yet.
I have no excuse for not providing an interesting post on this Eagle (apart from it being 7.45 am and not having had my swim and liking to be in the office before 9 am pour encourager les autres). When I was back in the UK at the Summer there was a book sale up at RSPB Conway - I think my 89 year Mother in Law must have been up there before me as I was gifted a very musty old book which still had its flyleaf - "African Birds of Prey - a study of Africa's 89 diurnal raptors and 31 owls - Leslie Brown". Published in 1970. I think it should be a good book to dip into.
The Martial Eagle is Africa's largest eagle - thats a good start. It feeds mostly on game birds so in this context I think that Sandgrouse and Partridges were a plenty in Ruaha and also their prey of choice Guinea fowl or Guinea Fools as we called them. (its so cool that I can now build up an eco-system here). There were certainly plenty of Guinea Fowl in Ruaha to support this particular bird. In my book they are in the chapter "Large and Spectacular Eagles". These are wide ranging but nowhere common eagles. They have a large territory of around 50 square miles - requiring a large tract of savannah stocked with suitable prey. Thats 7 miles by 7 miles - perhaps an eighth of the size of Greater London.
We did well to spot this bird - there modus operandi is to soar at huge heights - often over hills. This was seen in a rocky high area where we had gone for a change. They have fantastic eyesight and have been observed to lock onto a flock of Guinea Fowl from up to four miles away before starting off on an attack stoop. They will also take Impala calves and Rock Hyrax. I will come back to Rock Hyrax another day but probably described them last year in the context of the Mara River in Northern Tanzania.
Back to Impala. Many mornings we would spend a good twenty minutes watching the young male Impala fighting for the females. A series of ruts would result in a male taking possession of a harim of up to perhaps 40 antelope. The battles themselves were interesting to watch - tests of skill and strength with a prize thats a a bit of a curse. Once the male Impala takes his herd he then has to spend al of his time shepherding and watching them, mating of course. He will loose condition and is a prime candidate for being knocked off his perch by another male or worse still being eaten as he is unable to avid an ambush predator. I think I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
If a face could launch a thousand ships eh !
Finally after all that pushing and shoving our early morning sunrise - cold and blanket wrapped we would will the sun up out of its bed. The early mornings were crisp and full of promise. Every day different - everyday something new to see.
But that's everyday anyway if you are tuned in. Even a grasshopper or an ant has something to give up. Now we are into the Autumn and school runs, timetables, meetings and deadlines I am clear that I need to find at least an hour a week and a bird or two. Its cooling down and everything is on the move again.
Martial Eagle, Polemaetus Belicosus
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