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| The Giant Eagle Owl
is as large as Pel’s Fishing Owl and also favours large leafy trees
along watercourses as its roost site (the two species may sometimes be
found in close proximity). However,
the watercourses need not contact water for the Giant Eagle Owl since it
hunts far out into the surrounding savannah and thus can live in habitats
from arid semi-desert to tall moist woodland.
The huge size and
generally pale appearance are distinctive. It is a pale grey colour and
has a black rim to the facial disc, with stout “ears”, large dark eyes
with naked pink eyelids. It
has a wingspan of up to 155cm. Sexes
are alike in colouration and markings.
The young has a crown and wing-coverts and the their under parts
are barred in a smoky grey. |
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They are found from
George in the Eastern Cape all the way up to Ethiopia and in the western
parts from the Orange River to Senegal.
The Giant Eagle Owl
is the most rapacious of all African owls, killing prey as large as vervet
monkeys, warthog piglets and full-grown Secretary-birds.
But it is catholic in its diet and smaller fare, from termites to
rodents and game birds forms the bulk of its diet.
Hedgehogs, peeled out of their skins are a particular favourite.
When breeding, the
female lays two eggs in the old stick nests of other birds, usually
abandoned raptor nests and less often in a natural cavity in a tree.
The eggs are white in colour and are rough and pitted. Only one
chick is normally reared to independence.
Nesting takes place during the dry season between June and
September when there is the least foliage to conceal possible prey.
The juvenile only
leaves the parental territory to fend for itself after the subsequent
summer months have passed. The
whining voice of a hungry juvenile then gives way, once again, to the
grunting duets of courting adults. |
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