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Tawny Eagle

A species of Greater True Eagles
Scientific name : Aquila rapax Genus : Greater True Eagles

Tawny Eagle, A species of Greater True Eagles
Botanical name: Aquila rapax
Genus: Greater True Eagles
Tawny Eagle (Aquila rapax) Photo By Koshy Koshy , used under CC-BY-2.0 /Cropped and compressed from original

Description

The tawny eagle is considered to appear "inelegant, scruffy-looking" but has a fairly characteristic aquiline silhouette. The species has a fairly long neck and long deep bill with a gape line level with the eye, moderately long wings with fairly pronounced “fingers” and a slightly rounded to almost square-ended and shortish tail, which can be more reminiscent of the tail of a vulture than that of other eagles. The feathering on the legs is extensive and can appear almost baggy-looking. The bill and head are strong and bold, the body well-proportioned and feet are powerful while the countenance is quite fierce-looking. While perching, the tawny eagle tends to sit rather upright, often on stumps, posts, low trees or treetops for long periods of the day or may descend to the ground to walk somewhat unsteadily with a more horizontal posture. The wingtips when perched are roughly even with the tip of the tail. Adults have variably colored eyes, ranging from yellow to pale brown to yellow brown, while those of juveniles are dark brown. Both the cere and feet are yellow at all ages. The tawny eagle is polymorphic with considerable individual variation in plumage, resulting in occasional disparities in plumages that can engender confusion in some. In adulthood, they can vary in coloration from all dark grey-brown to an occasionally streaky (or more plain) foxy-rufous to buffish-yellow. Most adults are usually a general grey-brown or rufous-tawny color, with occasional pale spotting visible at close quarters on the nape and belly, coverts uniformly toned as the body. The nape is consistently dark and uniform despite the feathers often being tipped paler with other feathers in adults, lacking the contrasting paler feathers often seen in other Aquila. Females, in addition to being slightly larger, may tend to be slightly darker and more streaked than the males. The most blackish-brown individuals tend to occur in India. Adults often show relatively little varying colors apart from their somewhat blacker wing and tail feathers, though when freshly molted great wing coverts and secondaries may show small pale tips which may form pale lines along closed wing has tawny upper parts and blackish flight feathers and tail. The head is often similarly tawny in colour as the body but may also sometimes shows darker eyebrows, other thin brown streaks or a darker chin. Meanwhile, the tail is plain or obscurely dark barred (with around 7 subtle bands). The dark morph adult is essentially all dark, dull brown. Some dark morph tawny eagles with wear may show irregular streaking or molting browns and more blackish feathers. Intermediate morph are dark to rufous brown above with the mantle and wing coverts variably streaked or molted lighter rufous as is the head with the crown or crown-sides being paler. The intermediate morph's underside is largely rufous (especially farther south in Africa) with breast and flanks very heavily and broadly streaked dark brown, though at times appears all dark brown contrasting with plain trousers and crissum. Pale morph adult tawny eagles always show a clear contrast between the pale body and wing coverts which bear darker flight feathers and tail. In pale morphs, the underparts are rufous buff to lighty tawny-brown, phasing into somewhat darker lesser and median wing coverts to darker brown to even blackish greater coverts and flight feathers. The head may too be tawny in pale morph tawny eagles but sometimes with thin brown streaks or darker chin. Below pale morph adults are all light rufous to tawny buff or brown, sometimes paler below the belly area. In worn individuals the bodily feathers of pale morph tawny eagles can appear almost whitish. Dark morph juvenile tawny eagles are generally light rufous to rufous brown with creamier lower back to upper tail coverts. Juveniles show thinly pale-tipped dark brown greater coverts and remiges while the tail is barred grey and brown usually with a narrow creamy tip. Dark morph juveniles may fade to pale buff or creamy often before molting into browner plumage. Subsequent stages are not as well-known but it appears dark morph subadults gradually manifest a darker brown or rufous brown color on the mantle, as well as on the head and upper breast while maintaining a buffish rear body (i.e. lower back and rump patch). Generally other morphs are similar but not as well-known and are perhaps individually inconsistent. Many are rufous or sandy after a molt but have mottling later on, the extent of pale feathers indicative perhaps of their ultimate adult morph. In flight, the tawny eagle appears as a large raptor with a noticeably protruding head on a long neck, with a deep chest, long and broad wings with a somewhat narrower seven-fingered hand. The trailing edge of the wing is slightly curved outwards, indenting at the junction of primaries and secondaries, whilst the rounded, medium-length tail is usually held spread. The deep beats of the kinked wings can make their flight appear rather heavy and slow but they are quicker and more expansive in wing movements and often less forceful-looking than larger Aquila like steppe eagles and can be very agile when chasing other raptors to rob them. Tawny eagles soar with flat wings or very slightly raised and hands only slightly lower, and may fly similarly in a glide but may too arch when in a fast glide. Adult dark morphs are more or less uniform dark brown above and below, showing indistinctly and slightly paler and greyish primaries on both sides. Above, the main contrast on dark morphs above is paler creamy rump patch while, on the underside, the greyish color is contrasted with blackish tips and a diffused trailing edge along both the wings and tail. Intermediate morph tawny eagles are variably rufous streaked on brown to rufous brown on the back and wing coverts with a similar contrasting pale rump above as dark morphs. Below the intermediate's heavy dark streaks are only subtly different and their coloring can appear almost uniform. The wing quills of intermediate morphs are often greyer with a stronger contrast of the paler inner primaries and blackish wing ends. Pale morph are all pale tawny or buffish on both sides of the wing, which contrasting strongly with demarcated dark brown about the greater coverts, flight feathers and tail and usually the scapulars. The primaries are quite pale on pale morphs with sometimes the hint of a pale carpal comma. Some pale adults have pale bases to all the underprimaries and the quills are sometimes unbarred, but more usually the feathers have dense but narrow dark bars. Dark morph juveniles are light rufous to pale tawny body above which contrasts strongly with dark brown greater coverts, rear scapulars, flight feathers and tail, in turn all highlighting the creamy lower back to tail coverts. Below dark morph juveniles can look similar to pale morph adults apart from trailing whitish edges and often irregular pale diagonals along tips of greater wing coverts, though usually these fade early on. Little is known plumage development but the young eagles moult into brown, becoming patchy with intermediate often showing 1-3 darker bars on wing linings. The underparts of subadults (i.e. around 2 to 3 years or old) are typically two-toned, with darker brown about the breasts, belly and underwings coverts while the remainder of the underbody is creamy light in colour. This two-toned pattern is evidenced in subadult tawny eagles both from India and Africa. Adult plumage is obtained between the 4th and 5th years of life.
Size
75 cm
Colors
Brown
Black
Gray
White
Life Expectancy
45 years
Feeding Habits
Tawny Eagle scavenge on carrion and refuse, often with vultures. They hunt by diving or pouncing from perches, targeting mainly ground-based prey, and showing kleptoparasitism. Tandem hunting occurs, implying strategy. Their diverse diet includes over 200 species, favoring prey weighing 0.5-2 kg.
Habitat
The tawny Eagle is typically found in open woodland, wooded savannah, and semi-desert regions, avoiding both true deserts devoid of trees and dense tropical rainforests. These raptors favor arid landscapes that still support ephemeral seasonal rainfall, necessary for both prey abundance and nesting site availability. Their habitat includes thorn forests and thornveld dominated by Acacia species. Preferred elevations range up to 3,000 meters, with a tendency to inhabit lower altitudes. In some parts of Asia, the tawny Eagle adapts to living near human settlements, frequenting villages, cultivations, and garbage dumps seeking food sources. Crucially, tree availability for nesting is a habitat prerequisite, as the species is largely an obligate tree nester.
Dite type
Carnivorous

General Info

Behavior

The tawny eagle, quite unlike the steppe eagle, is largely sedentary and non-migratory. However, in Africa it is at times considered to be fairly nomadic and can engage in some seasonal movements. In west Africa, A. r. belisarius rather regularly travels shorter distance to damp woodlands during October through November, returning north in April, and perhaps at least at times, migrates into Kalahari region of Botswana and may vagrate to southern South Africa. Sometimes, tawny eagles seem to ping semi-regularly between Ethiopia and west Africa. Some long distance wandering has even been reported, such as a vagrant A. r. belisarius in Tunisia and as far as Egypt (where twice recorded in the 1950s) and even Israel (3 winter records in 1990s) and Oman. From the Indian range, individuals vagrate not infrequently to nearby Bangladesh, most likely as juveniles post-dispersal wanderings, but reports of the species wandering into southeast Asia such as Thailand are now considered likely apocryphal. Generally, in areas such as southern Africa, tawny eagles usually seldom seem to leave their established breeding territories and juvenile eagles generally wander no more than several dozen kilometres from their original nest. A bird banded as a nestling in Esigodini was recovered quite nearby at Fort Rixon more than two years later. However, in a rather far dispersal for southern Africa, one eagle banded as a nestling was recovered 330 km (210 mi) away from its nest of origin in Zimbabwe four years later. Inconsistent and seemingly unpredictable movements by tawny eagles have been proven via experimental ecological studies to be actually be instances of eagles searching out new areas to compensate for lack of rainfall. While non-breeding steppe eagles are often slightly social and flock at opportunistic feeding sources, the tawny eagle is usually considered solitary. However, groups of two to three tawny eagles are sometimes seen, such as in the Indian subcontinent, but occasionally group sizes may even exceed this figure. In the Mirpur Division of Azad Kashmir in Pakistan, small flocks of tawny eagles have reportedly been witnessed gathering in warmer spots between November and February, over three years of study. Small groups or aggregations are known to occur in Africa as well near concentrated foods and even communal roost have been reported in trees, power pylons or on the ground. Like many large raptors, the tawny eagle probably spends the majority of its day perched but take wing a few times a day. Unlike most large eagles, in India at least, tawny eagles are often fairly accustomed to humans and may allow fairly close approach by observers.

Distribution Area

Tawny eagles have an extremely extensive natural distribution. The African population can be found in three, fairly discrete populations. One of these is found in North Africa in south-central Morocco, possibly northern Algeria, southwestern Mauritania, Senegambia, southern Mali, central and southern Niger eastward through southern Chad, northern and central Sudan to most of Ethiopia and Somalia (but for the northeast and central-east). The north African population is scarce. In Morocco, they are heavily depleted with a few populations left in some regions such as Tarfaya, Tan-Tan and Souss-Massa. They are likely extirpated from Tunisia, where they were once frequent. In West Africa, some tawny eagles occur in Gambia, Togo, Nigeria and (though possibly not breeding) in Ivory Coast and Ghana. In east Africa and central Africa, the tawny eagle is found in central and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and throughout the drier portions of Uganda and in the entire nations of Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia (quite often residing in the Luangwa valley and the Chambeshi drainage), Malawi and Mozambique. In east Africa, it is considered perhaps the most widely distributed and regularly sighted brown eagle. In southern Africa, the tawny eagle is found throughout Zimbabwe (now often rare apart from Matabeleland and Chipinga Uplands), Botswana (still regular in Okavango Delta) and some areas of Namibia, southern and western Angola (Cuando Cubango, Cunene, Huíla Namibe, to Malanje), Eswatini, Lesotho and northern and central parts of South Africa, i.e. mainly north of the Orange River but sometimes down to the Cape Province. The tawny eagle may be extinct as a breeder in Swaziland where it was last confirmed to have bred in 2001. Out of Africa, the species may possibly be found in the southwestern part of the Arabian peninsula, i.e. in Yemen and extreme southwestern Saudi Arabia in the Tihamah and 'Asir Regions, but few to none confirmed breeding events have been reported in the last few decades. The tawny eagle is considered a rare vagrant in Israel, though some are verified, other reports of them often turn out to be misidentified steppe eagles. They are also known as a rare vagrant in Oman. In Asia, the tawny eagle exists in isolation in southeastern Iran (as in Arabia, verified recent breeding is not known) and somewhat more continuously in eastern Pakistan (often in the Indus valley), much of north and peninsular India, eastward scarcely through southern Nepal and Assam. Though Nepali tawny eagles are rarely recorded, it is thought that the species still resides there in lowland semi-deserts. The Indian range is from Punjab through the Indo-Gangetic Plain and western Bengal, northeastern Bihar, the Deccan Plateau with range continuing down to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and (mainly north-central) Tamil Nadu. Records of vagrating tawny eagles turning up in Myanmar, northern Vietnam and Thailand are thought to have been likely misidentified steppe eagles or are based on now unidentifiable specimens. A small handful of vagrants have been verified to turn up in Sri Lanka (the only known appearance by an Aquila eagle there). Old reports of vagrancy, probably in need of confirmation, are known also from Afghanistan.

Species Status

The tawny eagle still occupies a large range. In Africa, it has been estimated that the range of the species covers about 15 million square kilometers, in addition to a range of about 3.1 million square kilometers in Asia. As recently as the 1990s, the global population was thought to possibly range into six figures with a population in Asia at that time thought to be in the hundreds of thousands alone. However, the species is currently listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN list of Threatened species. The current population is far less than half of what it was once thought to be, with only about 100,000 to just under 500,000 individuals thought to persist worldwide. There was a clear decrease in tawny eagle sightings between SABAP and SABAP2 in Southern Africa, occurring in only 323 of 1440 quarter degree grid cells. During close study of the tawny and martial eagle in central Namibia, a precipitous decline was detected in both, with a tawny eagle population that was once regionally numbered about 19 pairs down to 2 known pairs. The once seemingly innumerous population of this species within Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park was known by the 1990s to be down to merely 40 known pairs. Roadside counts conducted in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso show that although the majority of raptor species are in drastic population decline, only the tawny eagle and snake eagles are surviving outside of protected areas. In India, the tawny eagle was once considered “our commonest eagle” but strong declines have been detected with surveys indicating strongholds like Rajasthan have shown reductions of observed pairs by up to half. According to the producer-scrounger foraging theory, vultures are to some extent reliant on tawny eagles to help locate carcasses. Thus, the conservation of eagles outside protected areas is of vital importance to ensure the survival of vultures.
Tawny Eagle (Aquila rapax) Tawny Eagle (Aquila rapax) Photo By Koshy Koshy , used under CC-BY-2.0 /Cropped and compressed from original

Scientific Classification

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