As I was driving my guests through some thick bush a few days ago, the huge shape of a Martial Eagle flew up from beside the road and landed in the tree opposite. We looked at it for a while and I suggested that it might have been on the ground because it had tried to catch something. Its crop was empty so I guessed it hadn’t been feeding and had perhaps missed its target. The guests asked what such a huge eagle would eat and I explained that they hunt Guinea fowl and other game birds, and sometimes prey as large as small antelope!

The eagle refused to fly off even though we were quite close, giving me the suspicion that it might actually have made a kill nearby which it was reluctant to give up. I reversed back and after a bit of searching, we found the carcass of a freshly killed bushbuck calf.