Acrobat Of The Plains

A familiar sight on many an African safari, the agile bateleur is a remarkable eagle which adapts well to life in a zoo or bird park. BILL NAYLOR offers his experience of this charismatic species

- Bill Naylor

ONE doesn’t need a field guide to identify a bateleur eagle (Terothopius ecaudatus). In appearance and behaviour it is totally different from other eagles and other birds of prey, and it’s these differences that have resulted in it being classified in its own genus.

A bird of the open plains of Africa, also found locally in Arabia, the bateleur is a familiar bird to anyone who has watched African wildlife documentaries. As it’s usually the most attractive raptor in the vicinity, the camera operator will often home in on this red-faced bird of prey, which is unperturbed by human activity or being filmed up close.

Apart from owls, the bateleur eagle is probably the most popular raptor housed in zoos and bird parks. Surprisingly, this eagle will dominate larger birds, but it can live in harmony with vultures in communal bird-of-prey exhibits (such exhibits are usually groups of nonbreeding birds). As it takes readily to captivity and can become very tame, it has also been a popular participant in falconry displays worldwide for some time and has lived for 50 years in captivity. The first UK breeding, according to Dave Coles’s First Breedings was in 1982.