His shout reverberated as he announced his arrival this morning!
I have posted about the African Harrier Hawk before and decided to post again because I got many good shots of him this morning.
We are in the last day of stage 5 lockdown and tomorrow stage 4 will start. But I digress, as I want to show you this beautiful scary fellow.
Let's have a look!
Note! The video at the end is not for sensitive viewers!
I had my camera on the "Sports" setting and it delivered the 3 shots above of his calling in a rapid succession.
This tree above and the yellow arrow is where the hawk was sitting!
Distance about 80 yards, but I was on the Super Zoom.
Looks like a cloak that he is wearing that covers his head and shoulders. And of course also a striped "Gucci" suit lol.
Busy cleaning himself, you can see that it is not a cloak, but rather feathers!
The resident Egyptian geese couple, Harry and Sally certainly let the hawk know that he was not welcome!
They sounded the alarm and all of the squirrels and even the house cats disappeared; not a bird in sight!
The hawk seemed to be just staring at the goose show with those grave black eyes!
Quite an impressive guy this killer is, as he calmly sat and reconnoitered the area. Making mental note of weak spots that he can attack in the future!
Finally, after about 30 minutes he flipped around and ruffled his feathers. A sign that he was preparing to take off!
Yep! That was the wing stretch and a moment later he dived down behind the tree, not to be seen again.
But I know that he will be back to capitalize on what he saw!
NOTE! THIS VIDEO IS NOT TO BE OPENED BY SENSITIVE VIEWERS!
You may have noticed that I called the hawk scary and killer a few times. That is indeed what he is and small animals stand no chance against his killer claws and ripping beak.
Let me show you here what his claws look like!
Like butcher's knifes are those claws that can easily lift 5 kilograms or even heavier. At the grab the prey is killed instantly!
Here is some more information about this guy!
"The African harrier-hawk is a medium-sized raptor. The upperparts, head and breast are pale grey. The belly is white with fine dark barring. The broad wings are pale grey with a black trailing edge fringed with a narrow white line. The tail is black with a single broad white band. There is a bare facial patch of variable colour, usually red or yellow. Genders are similar, but young birds have pale brown instead of grey, and dark brown replacing black".
" An unusual trait of this species is the double-jointed knees it possesses, which enable it to reach into otherwise inaccessible holes and cracks for prey. A comparable leg-structure and behavior can be found in the Neotropical crane hawk; a case of convergent evolution".
Source
And That's All Folks!
Most of my posts deal with the beauty of nature, but as in our lives, there is always a dark side. Great offers that we receive at times dressed up nicely exactly like this hawk. False news, scammers, get rich quick schemes, fraudulent emails, crypto thieves, you name it.
Many times we fall for it and burn our fingers.
Beware of the harrier hawks in life!
Note: All pictures are my own, unedited and only cropped for uploading purposes.
The two paragraphs in inverted commas ("") is not my own and duly source cited.
Camera used: Canon Powershot SX60HS fixed lens.
Settings: "Sports" and "Super Zoom".
We hope that you have enjoyed the pictures and thank you for visiting a post by 
