Living in the bush is never boring providing you observe all that is around you and it often gives you the most amazing opportunity to observe different and strange animal behaviour. On a recent game drive I saw a Snake Eagle perched on a tree stump, I approached slowly and started to take photos with my cell phone thinking that the eagle would soon fly away. Much to my surprise I eventually walked to within a metre of the eagle and it did not move. To my further surprise it allowed me to pick it up and believe me the feeling of holding this huge bird in your arms is awesome. The eagle looked a little dazed and fearing that it may have eaten a poisoned rat I brought it back to the lodge intending to find an animal rehab centre to assist me. I also called a local wildlife expert to ask his opinion on the bird, He arrived and while discussing the eagle that I was holding in my hands I inadvertently slipped my hands off of its wings and over the body, the eagle immediately took wing and flew away into some nearby trees, leaving me with a gash in my hand where its talons had only lightly touched me. Only the following morning did it finally fly away. This presented a real mystery to me. What had got this eagle into such a dazed state. A little later in the morning I found out that the reserve manager had found a dead puffadder on one of the electrified big 5 grids close to where I found the dazed eagle. The puffadder had probably tried to cross the grid and had got electrocuted. My assumption is that the eagle saw the puffadder on the grid and thought here is a tasty meal, only to get stunned when it tried to grab the puffadder. I think the eagle got one of the fundamental lessons in life “There ain’t no free meals”
Subsequent to this I met a falconer would had many dealings with raptors over the years and I related this story to him. He told me that it was common for the Brown Snake Eagle to almost go into a hypnotised state and that he had also experienced a Brown Snake Eagle letting him pick it up in the wild.
………so what do you think was the Brown Snake Eagle shocked by the electric Puffadder or was it just a little dozy ?
The Brown Snake Eagle – circaeteus cinereus is common to most of sub Saharan Africa it is monogamous having only one mate in its lifetime. The pair normally have one chick looked after by the female. The Eagles feed on geckos, lizards and snakes, the eagle will strike the snake on the head to kill it but is sometimes blinded by the venom of the spitting cobras.
Derrick Cochran – Tamboti Bush Lodge
Brown Snake Eagle
Brown Snake Eagle lying on the seat of the game viewer