Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
I came across this magnificent eagle the other day and decided to research it and make a post for the amazing 
We do have lots of hawks and owls around our property but I never see the hawks unless they're high in the sky and I only know about the owls because I hear them every night.
I think something like this eagle here would chase them all away though!
I'm talking about the great Harpy Eagle, it's found in the rain forests of Central America and of course like so many wonderful animals it's endangered.
This guy is massive with a wingspan of 7.5 feet and weighing over 20 pounds and stands 42 inches tall!
Here are a few of them standing beside their caretakers:
That gives you an idea of just how big these birds are. They are killing machines too of course and snatch monkeys and sloths out of trees for dinner. Which means they could also pick up human babies and toddlers. Yikes!
Their talons are an incredible sight at 3 to 4 inches long:
The caretakers and trainers say that a person has to be very careful not to irritate or make the birds angry!
They have a very unique appearance, many people find them to be creepy:
I'd love to see them on our property, maybe they could thin out the dang coyotes so the deer would come back. As far as being a trainer for one of these...I don't know about that.
If they're that easy to upset and they don't like their dinner or whatever, what's to keep them from taking your head off? lol...am I being a coward? Would you guys want to be a trainer for a Harpy?
I wonder what the insurance rates for a Harpy trainer are like?
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
PS- I accidently saw this on facebook, I'm not really on fb but Mrs. J. gets on there for entertainment purposes and I happened to see this great shot of a Mountain Lion.
Of course an insultive argument was going on about how this photo came about..some said the only way to get him up in a tree like that was because he was hunted by a pack of dogs.
The other argument was that the photographer had stalked him and waited for hours to get the shot..and that commenter swore on his mother's grave that it was the truth. lol.
Regardless of the situation, an amazing shot came out of it. I just hope it wasn't a hunter who got him treed and then shot him. I choose to believe it was the photographer waiting for hours in the freezing cold!