It's been more than three months since the egg hatched and our chick began its adventure. It is now about the same size as a hen, with well-developed gray plumage that it will retain until it reaches adulthood and leaves the nest in about two years. Thanks to HarpyCam we can understand some of the harpy eagle parental behaviors.
Since the hatching of the chick in Tambopata, we have been able to confirm some natural history harpy eagle facts. For example:
1. Harpy eagles are top predators that eat almost anything that can climb trees, such as squirrels, howler and capuchin monkeys, coatis, tamanduas (semi-arboreal anteaters), porcupines, and even sloths.
Harpy eagle eating a howler monkey by Rainforest Expeditions
2. It is also interesting to note the role of the female. Kee Wai (the female), has taken over and does most, if not all, of the work in the nest.
Harpy eagle (Kee wai) with chick by Rainforest expeditions
3. During the first couple of months, the male Bawaaja was generally seen as more engaged. He helped with nest building, incubation, and then, as the newly hatched young developed, Baawaja provided most of the food.
Harpy eagle protecting her chick from the storm by Rainforest expeditions
But now, in its third month, we hardly see it. Mom is the one who brings most of the prey, feeds the chick, brings branches with green leaves to the nest trying to cool it a bit; she is also the one who provides shade to the chick with her body when the sun hits the nest full on; her presence is constant, offering the chick constant protection.
It is precisely protection that I want to talk about today. In our video last week, we showed a potential threat flying over the nest. Harpy eagles are not supposed to have predators. However, when the king vulture (Sarcoramphus papa) flew over the nest, we saw a clearly defensive attitude on the part of Kee Wai.
So now we can begin to understand a little better why she spends so many hours in the nest with the chick apparently doing nothing that might seem "productive".
What might have happened if the mother wasn't there at the time? Would the king vulture have landed on the nest to feed on the prey carrion (skin, bones...) and killed the chick immediately?
King Vulture by Lucas Bustamantes
King vultures are the largest vultures in the tropical Americas and are known to be purely scavengers. We believe that the king vulture could have pushed the chick out of the nest and made it fall to the ground. In fact, our pair's first two chicks a few years ago turned up dead on the ground when they were two months old.
I guess Kee Wai and Baawaja have learned from their failures with previous chicks and have improved their parenting skills to the point of being able to adequately raise a chick to adulthood (their previous chick left the nest in March 2017).
So, what remains the biggest question is Dad. Why is Baawaja, the male, not showing up for weeks? And as time goes on, less and less? It doesn't make sense to me. If he stayed at the nest more often, sharing responsibilities, or at least helping Kee Wai bring prey home or just staying at the nest in case of any danger, his chances of reproductive success would increase significantly.
We only have three months of data with an average of 10-12 hours of observations per day. What I share with you are not results, but preliminary observations on data collected in the most critical months of the breeding process, when the chick is small, fragile and more exposed to different threats (as we have been seeing so far). Therefore, my thoughts lean towards the imbalance exhibited in the parental behavior of the harpy eagle, where the mother bears the vast majority of the tasks.
It would be easier to pass on her genes to the next generation (the goal of every living thing) if the male was a little more cooperative, no? What do you think?
