Where does martial Eagle usually live?
Where does martial Eagle usually live?
The martial eagle is to some degree adaptable to varied habitats but shows an overall preference for open woods and woodland edges, wooded savannah and thornbush habitats. The martial eagle has been recorded at elevations of up to 3,000 m (9,800 ft) but is not a true mountain dwelling species and resident eagles do not usually exceed an elevation of 1,500 m (4,900 ft). These eagles also avoid closed-canopy forests and hyper-arid desert. As such it is mostly absent from Guinean and Congolian forests, despite the species’ requirement for large trees for nesting purposes. It is shown that martial eagles can inhabit forests locally in areas where openings occur. For example, in a bird atlas for the country of Kenya, perhaps surprisingly, 88% of martial eagles were found to reside in well-wooded areas and they occurred in areas where annual rainfall exceeded 250 mm (9.8 in). In southern Africa, they have adapted to seemingly more open habitats than elsewhere in their range, such as semi-desert and open savanna with scattered trees, wooded hillocks and, as a recent adaptation, around pylons. In the desert areas of Namibia, they utilize ephemeral rivers that flow occasionally and allow large trees to grow. They usually seem to prefer desolate or protected areas. In the Karoo of South Africa, they consistently avoid areas with moderate to heavy cultivation or with heavier or more consistent winter rainfall. One study on the occurrence of diurnal raptors in protected areas against unprotected areas, found that martial eagle detection was nearly twice as frequent in protected areas during the dry season and more than three times as frequent during the wet season than in unprotected areas. Some assorted diurnal raptors were even relatively rarer outside of protected areas such as hooded vultures (Necrosyrtes monachus).
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Photo By Lip Kee , used under CC-BY-SA-2.0 /Cropped and compressed from original