Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [55]
I know that I am not going to see a live Haast’s eagle any more than I’m likely to see a moa—though the rediscovery and resurrection of the turkey-size, flightless New Zealand bird called the takahe offers a last, lingering hope that a remnant population of small moas might yet somehow survive in the cloud-shrouded wilderness of Aotearoa’s South Island. Slim though it is, I have a much better chance of one day encountering a harpy or a Philippine eagle than one of the flightless New Zealand giants, which sadly are no moa.
Bald eagles, now, those are comparatively easy to see since the dramatic recovery of their breeding population in the United States. They even live in and around my hometown of Prescott. Visiting remote parts of the world has allowed me to see their close cousins, the other fish eagles, on multiple occasions. The most striking encounter occurred in the Raja Ampat Islands of eastern Indonesia. We were in a small boat wending our way through the remarkable karst landscape when a large sea eagle descended to its nest atop a jutting pinnacle of heavily eroded limestone. The eagle itself was striking, but its chosen perch even more so. The rock had been eroded to leave behind, from our viewing angle, the perfect silhouette of an eagle’s head.
Though they do not attract as much notice as their flashier relative the bald eagle, fish eagles and ospreys are just as attractive to watch in the wild. Skimming along above the shining surface of still water, salt or fresh, they strike sharply downward with their claws at fish that are swimming just below the surface. Their wing beats grow stronger and more determined as they fight to climb skyward with their prey while simultaneously keeping watch for gulls or other scavengers that tend to linger close by, eager to snatch away the catch of another.
Some fish eagles have it easier than others. Those patrolling the surfaces of lagoons in the Pacific have little to worry about. While hunting above rivers in the Amazon, fish-seeking raptors must keep an eye out for the occasional lurking caiman. I’ve always thought those that live in Africa have the hardest time of all.
Journeying upstream in a small boat on the Chobe River, which divides Botswana from the thin latitudinal ribbon of Namibia called the Caprivi Strip, I once watched a fish eagle hunting nearly parallel to our craft. Unlike its cousins elsewhere, it periodically had to rise and then drop down again in its quest for a meal, lest it run headlong into wrestling elephants, waiting crocodiles, migrating Cape buffalo, or the occasional gaping mouth of a yawning hippo. The eagle negotiated every one of these obstacles with equanimity, only intermittently venting its irritation with a piercing cry of indignation.
When it finally succeeded in snatching a fish from the roiling waters, it immediately retired to the top of the nearest suitable tree to consume its meal at leisure. As we motored past, the great bird looked up long enough to favor my guide and me with a suitably imperious glance before returning to its meal of fresh flesh and fish guts.
Residing where I do, on a small piece of undisturbed land on the fringes of an explosively expanding community, I have still had the occasional opportunity to observe such regal raptors at closer quarters than do my more urbanized friends. My study overlooks a small canyon through which runs a live stream. While like everything else that moves in Arizona the creek’s cheerful rush is sometimes stilled by the anvillike heat of high summer, there is almost always water present in shaded pools and secluded nooks in the sheltering granite. This permanent water source draws many prey species as well as those that prey upon them. Among these visitors can be counted the preferred diet of hawks, falcons, kestrels, and owls. Alas, the peregrine falcons that breed on nearby Granite Mountain prefer different quarry.
Over the years, I have grown intimate with an extended family of red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis)