WITH MY OWN EYES
THE KRUGER PARK
M y wife Clara and I visited the Kruger Park in November 2019. It was our annual holiday and we camped at Letaba for nine days. We love camping – our Gypsey Romany caravan is very comfortable.
One day around 4 pm, we were relaxing at the caravan when Clara saw a monitor lizard. She called me over and I grabbed my camera to take photos because the monitor lizard was only 15 m away. I have a Canon EOS 760D with a Sigma 150 – 600 mm lens.
A few seconds later the unexpected happened:
A martial eagle 1 swooped down and caught the monitor! I didn’t notice the eagle hanging around before it launched its attack; I’m not sure whether it was perched in a tree or soaring overhead – I suspect the latter.
The eagle sat on its prey 2, 3 for about 10 minutes before eating it 4 . Other campers also came over to watch, and the bird eventually hopped away into the veld 5 to enjoy its meal in peace.
This was the first time Clara and I had seen this kind of behaviour.
EXPERT OPINION
The martial eagle’s diet mainly consists of mammals, birds and reptiles. While mammals may be the dominant prey in some areas, it’s often birds or reptiles in others. In the eastern parts of the country like the Kruger Park, for example, martial eagles prey more on reptiles and birds (usually ground-dwelling species like guineafowl and spurfowl) than they do on mammals. And they particularly like monitor lizards.
There are many reasons why birds turn their heads “upside down”, like in Photo 1. Most raptors have eyes in the front of their skulls; other birds’ eyes are on the sides. This gives a raptor excellent binocular vision, which enables it to focus on objects with great accuracy. (A martial eagle can identify prey from 6 km away.) The disadvantage is that a raptor has to rotate its head to see something behind or outside its visual field, or to focus on an object very close by. Of course, the bird could also be turning its head to hear better.