Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/04/05

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Subject: [Leica] Secretary Bird Aggression
From: jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 12:14:47 +0530

The most unusual experience of the East African trip was coming across not
one, but two instances of aggression by Secretary Birds. Up till now, I had
seen them either roosting on acacia trees, or marching across the
grasslands, with their pompous walk, searching for snakes, their primary
diet.

The first instance was a Tawny Eagle and a Secretary Bird taking turns
running down a hare! Firstly, the Eagle - we were quite far away at this
point and this is a massive crop, for illustration:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2013/Ndutu_20130307_07769-Edit.jpg.html

Then the Secretary Bird took over:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2013/Ndutu_20130307_08018-Edit.jpg.html

Lost the prey:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2013/Ndutu_20130307_08024-Edit-2.jpg.html

Found it again:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2013/Ndutu_20130307_08038-Edit.jpg.html

Killed it:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2013/Ndutu_20130307_08047-Edit.jpg.html

The funny thing was that both the birds abandoned the kill and went away!
Maybe there were too many vehicles around...

I saw this behaviour again in Ol Pejeta Conservancy, when a Secretary Bird
aggressively chased a jackal around for 10 minutes:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2013/Ol_Pejeta_20130315_09854.jpg.html

Deed done, he rejoined his mate:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2013/Ol_Pejeta_20130315_09859.jpg.html

Please see LARGE

Comments and criticism, as ever, welcome.

Cheers
Jayanand


Replies: Reply from j2m46 at hotmail.fr (Jean-Michel Mertz) ([Leica] Secretary Bird Aggression)
Reply from photo at frozenlight.eu (Nathan Wajsman) ([Leica] Secretary Bird Aggression)