Early morning and he must have had a late night.
It is a first for me to see the bird yawning, and I got him yawning a few times.
It is a juvenile Harrier Hawk (Polyboroides typus) and he was trying to get warm in the early winter sun. This was the reason for the lack of birdsong this morning, as when one of these appears, all of the birds flee. It is a magnificent bird, and there are only two species of this type. This one is in Africa, and the other one is in Madagascar. The only thing about the bird that we don't like is that he catches small birds and animals.
I will let Wikipedia tell you more about this bird's hunting techniques.
The African harrier-hawk is omnivorous, eating the fruit of the oil palm as well as hunting small vertebrates. Its ability to climb, using wings as well as feet, and its long double-jointed legs, enable this bird to raid the nests of cavity-nesters such as barbets and woodhoopoes for eggs and nestlings. It has been known to prey on introduced species such as feral pigeons, house sparrows and eastern gray squirrels.
They forgot to mention that he even catches small dogs.
The African harrier-hawk is omnivorous, eating the fruit of the oil palm as well as hunting small vertebrates. Its ability to climb, using wings as well as feet, and its long double-jointed legs, enable this bird to raid the nests of cavity-nesters such as barbets and woodhoopoes for eggs and nestlings. It has been known to prey on introduced species such as feral pigeons, house sparrows and eastern gray squirrels.
You can even see him in the source link, hanging from a weaver colony nest.
This was when I saw him landing on a high lamppost across the road.
This was the second yawn, and it is not really a yawn as they open their beaks wide and draw fresh air into their bodies. They really don't yawn like we do. But it looks like it. Lol.
Check out his hairdo in the 4 shots below. I think you will also step out into the road with your camera to get some better shots of him, and he doesn't mind.
Look, he even waved to me, as if to say; Oh no not you again with that camera.
He seemed to like me catching his yawn, and here below he really let me have it.
And that's it for this post about him, and I will post more of him in the future.
I have a habit of taking a lot of pictures of an item with the thought that I can occasionally go back to the pictures to search out the unpublished ones. But I get so many pictures every day, that it becomes a habit to post the pictures on the day and then to think that I will go back to post more. But no such luck, and the photos just keep on piling up in my files. My you, sometimes I remember that I said that I would do a second post about something and I do the post as promised. But not always.
Things are busy at Papillon and at times I can only find a bit of time to squeeze a post in on my blog. But I really don't like to do that as I always get so involved in the posts that I write. We love nature and it has so many different settings that play on one's emotions during filming. It also teaches one patience, and being a one-fingered typing guy it can take me two-three hours to complete a post. Fortunately, my wife is also a proof-reader, and I will never allow AI to write anything for me.
Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
Until next time, cheers!
