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Circaetus fasciolatus (Southern
banded snake-eagle)
Dubbelbandslangarend [Afrikaans]; Grijze slangenarend
[Dutch]; Circaète barré [French]; Graubrust-schlangenadler [German];
Águia-cobreira-barrada [Portuguese]
Life
> Eukaryotes >
Opisthokonta
> Metazoa (animals) >
Bilateria >
Deuterostomia > Chordata >
Craniata > Vertebrata (vertebrates) > Gnathostomata (jawed
vertebrates) > Teleostomi (teleost fish) > Osteichthyes (bony fish) > Class:
Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned
fish) > Stegocephalia (terrestrial
vertebrates) > Tetrapoda
(four-legged vertebrates) > Reptiliomorpha > Amniota >
Reptilia (reptiles) >
Romeriida > Diapsida > Archosauromorpha > Archosauria >
Dinosauria
(dinosaurs) > Saurischia > Theropoda (bipedal predatory dinosaurs) >
Coelurosauria > Maniraptora > Aves
(birds) > Order: Falconiformes
> Family: Accipitridae
> Genus: Circaetus
Distribution and habitat
Occurs along the coastal plain of east Africa, from
southern Kenya through Tanzania to Mozambique, eastern Kwazulu-Natal and eastern
Zimbabwe.
It generally prefers coastal evergreen forest, sand forest, thickets and plantations.
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Distribution of Southern banded snake-eagle in southern Africa,
based on statistical smoothing of the records from first SA Bird Atlas
Project (©
Animal Demography unit, University of
Cape Town; smoothing by Birgit Erni and Francesca Little). Colours range
from dark blue (most common) through to yellow (least common).
See here for the latest distribution
from the SABAP2. |
Predators and parasites
Young nestlings have been recorded as prey of
Haliaeetus vocifer (African
fish-eagle).
Movements and migrations
Resident and largely sedentary.
Food
It mainly eats snakes, doing most of its foraging from a
perch, scanning the surrounding vegetation for prey. If it catches a large snake,
it rips it into bite-size pieces before feeding, but if it small enough it just
swallows it whole and head-first. The following food items have been recorded
in its diet:
Breeding
- Monogamous and territorial, performing an aerial display in which it flies
up and down while calling loudly, sometimes finish with a steep dive.
- The nest is built by both sexes, consisting of an open platform of thin
sticks with a smaller inner cup, lined with fresh green sprigs. The whole
structure is roughly 50-70 cm wide, and the cup is usually about 17 cm wide.
It is typically placed in the main fork of a tree, especially the following:
- Brachystegia (miombo)
- Apodytes dimidiata (White-pear)
- Scutia myrtina (Cat-thorn)
- Trema orientalis (Pigeonwood)
- Antidesma venosum (Tassel-berry)
- Ficus sur (Broom-cluster fig)
- Terminalia sericea (Silver cluster-leaf)
- Egg-laying season is from August-October.
- It probably lays a single egg, which is mainly incubated by the female
for about 49-51 days. The male may take over for short stints, early in
the incubation period.
- The chicks are fed by both parents on a diet of shredded snake flesh,
although at first the male does most of the hunting, while the female cares
for the nestling.
Threats
Near-threatened globally and Vulnerable in
South Africa, due its small, fragmented distribution and ongoing habitat
destruction.
References
-
Hockey PAR, Dean WRJ and Ryan PG 2005. Roberts
- Birds of southern Africa, VIIth ed. The Trustees of the John Voelcker
Bird Book Fund, Cape Town.
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