| CAPTAIN'S BLOG HARPY EAGLE |
| times a day. While visiting villages during our travels we frequently see domestic hens raising young forest birds or even brooding the eggs. Harpies eat monkeys, sloths, coatis, large birds and snakes. When mature its curved talons will be as long as a grizzly bear’s claws. Its wings will be broad, rounded, and short compared to body length and tail. It will swoop through the jungle like a hawk, pick a monkey off a branch, and crush it on contact, fly into the nearest tall tree and strip the bones clean. The female is much larger than the male and weighs up to 20 pounds, the largest, most powerful bird of prey in the world. I think the scarcity and rarity of this species, has been exaggerated. Considering their huge size, they are relatively inconspicuous, staying primarily within the forest, seldom if ever soaring, and rarely flying above the canopy. Combine that with living in the areas of some of the lowest human population density, and they are not often seen, except flying across the river in front of our boat, or occasionally after a hard rain, perched on a branch hanging over the river drying and preening. However, they are scarce enough that not many gringos have held a harpy eagle in their hands. |
| Dawn on the Amazon, 2005. All rights reserved. |
| This is a baby harpy eagle, the largest, most powerful bird of prey. We had the opportunity to hold and photograph this bird while visiting a village 200 miles from civilization. A hen, with feathers colored remarkably the same as the harpy, was raising it as its chick. A native boy fed it slivers of raw fish several |
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| This link will take you to our on-line photo album to see pictures from some of our past cruises. |