Skylords: View from the Eagles’ Eyrie

Since time immemorial, eagles have left us awestruck. So much so that Superpowers like the USA and the erstwhile Soviet Union and even 25 lesser powers have used them as emblems of imperial might. The Romans, Charlemagne, the Kaisers, the Czars of Russia, and Julius Caesar used eagles as heraldic symbols of war and power. Our ancient rishis thought the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) to be supreme — “suparna” — quite simply because they are the most powerful raptors of them all, the “king of birds”.

So how deserving are they of the accolades bestowed on them? Eagles are huge, heavy birds with broad wings and wedge-shaped tails. The largest have wingspans exceeding six feet, and for the smallest, our south or great Nicobar serpent eagle (Spilornis klossi), it’s about 85-95 cm. All are fearsomely armed. There is the terrifying hooked bill that can ruthlessly rend and tear flesh and grappling iron talons which would do justice to a grizzly bear — with a grip that could crush your wristbones to powder. Usually, they ambush from the sky, having targeted their victims (mammals, reptiles, birds etc.) from afar with the help of vision eight times as sharp as ours. That deep glowering brow over their eyes helps keep the glare out and makes them look even more menacing. Alas, all this gravitas can be ruined when they call — usually a high-pitched falsetto scream or squeal. I once mistook a Pallas’s fishing eagle’s (Haliaeetus leucoryphus) call for a puppy being smacked.

The most glamorous of all eagles is the golden eagle, a bird that dwells in the mountains of India and Eurasia. It plunges down at an incredible 320 kmph, to sink its talons into the back of some unfortunate ungulate, fox, or rodent, and carries it up to its eyrie (nest), with powerful wingbeats.

There are around 60 eagle species worldwide (I’ve tallied around 19 for India), and they’ve been grouped into four main “tribes”: Fishing eagles which have rough, scaly legs and live by snatching fish and eels out of the water; booted alias “true” eagles with feathered lower legs (tarsi); serpent or snake eagles adapted to a diet of reptiles including venomous snakes; and the powerful harpies, the monster eagles of tropical rainforests. As a rule, eagles are monogamous. A partnership is established after a breathtaking aerobatic courtship involving the meshing of talons mid-air and somersaulting and spiralling earthwards before separating at the very last moment. The female is usually larger than her partner. Together they construct a massive residence, called an eyrie, consisting of branches, leaves and twigs, atop the forest canopy or rocky cliff ledge. Here, they will bring up their young. Usually, two eggs are laid at intervals, and incubation lasts 6-8 weeks. The firstborn — often a daughter — will usually kill her younger sibling, a practice that leaves her parents unmoved. For as long as a year or more, this spoilt princess will get a lot of TLC: her father will hunt, and her mother tenderly feeds her strips of meat torn out of carcasses with that formidable bill. The fledgling will not attain its full adult attire for 3-4 years, which drives ID obsessed birders nuts. At the best of times, it can be difficult to identify eagles, confusingly blotched and splotched and dappled as they are in myriad combinations of brown, grey, black and white. In addition, some are migratory, following the waterfowl southwards as winter approaches, while others are long-term residents.

So are they as noble as they have been made out to be? Soaring in the heavens on majestic wings (they like hitching a free ride on storm winds), they are spectacular, and while hunting, they can take your breath away with their speed and power and sheer ruthlessness. Many, like the tawny eagle (Aquila rapax), favour scavenging to hunting and will sully their image by thronging garbage heaps with the likes of kites and crows. Others like the imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca) are out and out bandits, mugging other birds’ kills.   

On a foggy morning in Keoladeo National Park (Bharatpur) years ago, while walking down the main road running through the sanctuary, we discerned what appeared to be a large sack of potatoes shuffling its way along the side of the road. It was an eagle, grounded perhaps by the fog. Eventually, with a great bluster of wings, it lifted off and was away. On that same grey day, we spotted a tawny eagle perched on a fallen dead tree in the middle of a dry grassy patch. Cautiously, we approached it: the large chocolate coloured bird grew bigger and bigger in our viewfinders until we found ourselves at the very base of the tree, staring up at it and feeling a little foolish because our telephoto lenses were now clearly redundant! For a while, it didn’t move a muscle, then reputation redeemed and gawping plebeians duly humbled, the bird unfurled its great wings and took off.

Amongst the most familiar of resident eagles is the richly speckled crested serpent eagle (Spilornis cheela). In the 1990s, every October, one would spend a couple of days on the trees of the Nicholson Cemetery next door to my house in Delhi’s Civil Lines. Another bird posed statuesquely on a tree again in the Keoladeo National Park on a golden sunlit morning — asking to be photographed — except that we had left our cameras behind and so could only gawp. In the late 1990s, there had been news of the birds nesting on one of the trees on a busy road, spitting distance from Connaught Place. And around 2010-2011, I was greatly excited to spot a crested serpent eagle in the old trees in the garden of the Nehru Memorial Museum in New Delhi.

For long, Mongolians have trained eagles to hunt foxes for them on the endless Central Asian steppes in much the same way falcons are trained to take down bustards. In Singapore’s famous Jurong Bird Park, eagles (and other raptors) would put on a show for visitors, swooping down and snatching tidbits from their trainers. But alas, it kind of ruins the mood when you see these same symbols of power and freedom shackled to perches in leg-irons when off duty.

While several eagle species are doing well enough, others are protected, and some, like the American bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), have been successfully rehabilitated. The mighty Philippine monkey-eating eagle (Pithecophaga jeffereyi) is critically endangered, and the Amazonian harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) is rapidly losing ground. All these big eagles breed slowly, and the forests which they call home are being ruthlessly felled. To lose such birds would be unforgivably criminal.