BLOG
The Mapungubwe National Park is located along the banks of the Limpopo River at the confluence point where the Shashe River joins the Limpopo River. This is the place where three counties, namely South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe meet. It was during our recent trip to the park in November when we spotted at a long distance away, two large birds sitting at the top of a very tall tree. Trying not to scare the birds, we approached very slowly and once close enough, we were able to identify these two birds as Brown Snake Eagles. Using my long 800mm lens, I was able to capture the antics of these two Eagles.
A rare sighting indeed
The Brown Snake Eagle is a very solitary bird and even when it is mating, pairs are quite rarely seen.
It is not uncommon for Brown Snake Eagles to take over the old nests of other raptors.
A single egg clutch is laid and is incubated by the female for approximately 50 days and the female takes on the brooding. The role of the male during this time is to deliver the required food.
One of the pair streched its neck high into the air numerous times while the other bird appeared not to show any interest at all.
Trying to find a suitable caption here
After making a number of calls which went completly unnoticed by the partner, the other bird appeared to vocalise its utter frustration.
I have been trying to come up with a caption for this image (below) but thought I would invite my subscribers to send in some suggestions...
The male birds do almost all known territorial display flights, which sometimes escalate from typical soaring into butterfly-erratic flight movements.
After seemingly being totally disinterested, suddenly the one bird took off right over the head of the other bird as if to say, 'try this...'
The aerial display continued with some intense staring at each other as the airborne bird swooped down low over the other bird.
Enough of this mating stuff for now, let me move on
Both of the Eagles took to the air and moved on. 'Enough of this mating for now, perhaps lets leave it for another day'.
Source: Behavioural information used in this blog was obtained from Wikipedia
