Harpy Eagle in Flight (Photo By Mdf – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1552061)
Dear Readers, sadly i have missed National Harpy Eagle Day, which was celebrated in Panama on 10th April, but here I am, playing catch up as usual. What an extraordinary bird this is! It lives in the neotropical forests of Central and South America – we’re used to thinking of eagles as mountain birds, but this one is a creature of the canopy. As is usual with birds of prey, the females are larger than the males – a female harpy eagle can weigh up to 20ibs (9 kgs), with a wingspan of up to 88 inches (224 cm). That’s a wingspan of over 7 feet, people! The harpies of the Classical tradition used to fly the dead to Hades, and in Aztec mythology they were sacred to Quetzalcoatl. You might recognise the bird if you’re familiar with the Harry Potter movies, as it was a Harpy Eagle that inspired Fawkes the Phoenix.
Photo by By Jonathan Wilkins – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40312024
Harpy eagles eat a variety of prey species (116 different kinds of mammal have been recorded) but they seem to have a special fondness for sloths and monkeys. They will also munch upon macaws and other parrots, and aren’t adverse to picking up lizards and snakes if they spot them. These eagles have the longest talons of any eagle, and generally sit in the canopy, scanning for prey (again different from European eagles, who will soar for miles, looking out for prey on open ground).
Harpy eagle with capuchin monkey (Photo by By Jiang Chunsheng – Miranda, E.B.P., Peres, C.A., Carvalho-Rocha, V. et al. Tropical deforestation induces thresholds of reproductive viability and habitat suitability in Earth’s largest eagles. Sci Rep 11, 13048 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92372-z, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107138840)
Harpy Eagles are believed to mate for life, and raise one chick every two to three years. They typically lay two eggs, but after the first egg hatches successfully, the second one is ignored, its only role being as an insurance policy. The successful hatchling will be fed for six months, and will stay with its parents for between six months and a year. With this slow rate of breeding, you can imagine the impact of deforestation and in some cases direct persecution, where the eagle is thought to prey on stock animals. Although there are no recorded cases of Harpy Eagles hunting humans, their large size makes them formidable opponents if their nests are disturbed.
Harpy Eagle Nest (Photo by Marcos Felix fromhttps://www.naturetrek.co.uk/news/harpy-eagle-updates-2022)
There are a number of captive breeding programme, and one in Panama has succeeded in breeding 49 Harpy Eagles and releasing them into the wild so far, and various other conservation breed-and-release projects are happening throughout the eagle’s range, including Belize, Brazil and Colombia. Because the bird lays two eggs but only hatches one, it’s an opportunity to captive breed the egg that would otherwise simply go to waste. As usual, the researchers breeding the birds make sure that the eaglets don’t imprint on humans, by using gloves that imitate the head of the eagle, or by making sure that the carers don’t look like humans. I remember that in the Californian Condor breeding project, carers had to wear cow costumes, which must have made for some interesting anecdotes.
If you’d like to see some film of these magnificent birds (and hear what they sound like), have a look at the video below. Robert E.Fuller is a wildlife photographer, conservationist and all round good egg, with none of the ego of some other cameramen. Well worth a look!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkBCaC0be_M