| Actual Image
Aquila rapax (43)
oanaotilia
![Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 309 W: 19 N: 506]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-s-g.gif) (1682) | Finally, the spring in here.
Together with some good friends I decided to make a trip somewhere in Belgium. We said let’s go to Bouillon, close to the French border deep in the south of the Belgian province of Luxembourg. This castle was once owned by Godfry of Bouillon, leader of the first crusade to Jerusalem in the year 1096. The town is first mentioned in a text of 988, but it was probably already inhabited in the Gallo-Roman period. It is now a lovely tourist city, where people who like to spend their holidays in green surroundings will certainly find something to their liking. In the local tourist office information can be obtained about different walking routes in the Bouillon area. Also fishermen will find the Semois river an interesting place to practice their sport.
We visited the castle we walked on the darker medieval corridors or the stairs.
But the main attraction, included in the entrance price is an educational exhibition on falconry all year round. And, believe me, this is extraordinary! This show is based on the tradition of hunting with birds of prey. This was a luxury sport, reserved only to the kings or higher lords. Oana1
Between those birds, it was this beautiful and magnificent tawny eagle Aquila rapax.
It is about 62–72 cm in length and has a wingspan of 165–185cm. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. It was once considered to be closely related to the migratory Steppe Eagle, Aquila nipalensis, and the two forms have previously been treated as conspecific. They were split based on pronounced differences in morphology and anatomy; molecular analysis indicates that these birds are not even each other's closest relatives.
It breeds in most of Africa both north and south of the Sahara Desert and across tropical southwestern Asia to India. It is a resident breeder which lays 1–3 eggs in a stick nest in a tree, crag or on the ground.
Throughout its range it favours open dry habitats, such as desert, semi-desert, steppes, or savannah.
This is a large eagle with tawny upperparts and blackish flight feathers and tail. The lower back is very pale. This species is smaller and paler than the Steppe Eagle, although it does not share that species' pale throat.
Immature birds are less contrasted than adults, but both show a range of variation in plumage colour.
The Tawny Eagle's diet is largely fresh carrion of all kinds, but it will kill small mammals up to the size of a rabbit, reptiles and birds up to the size of guineafowl. It will also steal food from other raptors.
The call of the Tawny Eagle is a crow-like barking, but it is rather a silent bird except in display.
All the birds were kept in special places, and probably many will say that those are not ideal conditions for a big bird. Maybe they are right, but the show that they offer worth it. I was really impressed. |
|
