#accipitriformes

[webberwoof]

back with more black shouldered kites...this was such a beautiful experience what cool birds man

i was gonna crop these 👇 but i think they look more awesome with the big dark cloudy background

me when i slip on a flying invisible banana

[herd-reject-arts]

So I'm leaving work and something darts in front of me, maybe 10ft away, too fast for me to see what it is. Peek around the tree blocking my path and I see this

Just like... a whole ass hawk. Dude's gotta be about 1.5ft tall. Massive fucking bird. And it's just staring me straight in my soul like this, even as I try to move ahead. It didn't budge. And there's only this path back to my car unless I want to walk on a busy highway. So I have the option of Death By Raptor or Death By Truck.

So I walk in the poison ivy filled patch off the sidewalk. Guy still isn't moving. Still staring me directly in the eyes. And I do this thing when animals are behaving strangely where I'll talk to them, so I'm just like, "Hey, man. I don't know you. You don't know me. This feels really threatening. I'm just trying to get to my car, dude. Can I get some space please? You're a big fucking bird. I see those claws. You could kill me right now, but I'd appreciate if you didn't, ok?"

It didn't move until I was about 2ft away. Again: I'm as far from it as I can be without walking into the street. It clearly wasn't going to budge. I walk past, thing flies up (silent, btw. Scary) and lands on a brick wall a little further ahead

Anyway. Weird guy. Nearly shit my pants when I noticed a bird big enough to carry off a fully grown cat was just... there, staring me in the face, unwilling to move away from me, a human, something it should see as a threat. I watched behind me the whole rest of the way to my car, just in case this bird decided to help me shed this mortal coil. 10/10 experience. Super cool guy.

[herpsandbirds]

Three friends share a carcass at Potrero Ranch outside of Kingsville, TX, USA.

Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus), family Cathartidae, order Accipitriformes

Harris Hawk's aka Bay-winged Hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), family Accipitridae, order Accipitriformes

Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus cheriway), family Falconidae, order Falconiformes

photograph by Josefina Espinosa Salumunek  

[alonglistofbirds]

[1591/10977] Booted eagle - Hieraaetus pennatus

Order: Accipitriformes Family: Accipitridae Subfamily: Aquilinae (booted eagles)

Photo credit: Miguel Rouco via Macaulay Library

[vulture-appreciation]

Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus)

© Marc Gálvez

[birds--daily]

incredible work!! your style is so distinctive and fun to look at :) would love to see a bearded vulture or a harpy eagle!!

day 16

today's bird is the harpy eagle!

- the talons of a harpy eagle are about the same length as a grizzly bear's claws! (i did not very accurately portray this in my drawing lmao)

- harpy eagles feed on sloths, opossums, and monkeys

- their characteristic head plumage can help direct sound waves into their ears

- they are a keystone species in their native range (southern mexico through central and south america, down to argentina)

[snototter]

A bearded vulture or lammergier (Gypaetus barbatus) nests in Mongolia

by Tumendelger Khumbaa

[birdblues]

Albino Turkey Vulture

[unrestrained-balderdash-art-blog]

Happy International Asexuality Day!!!! 💜

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

As any fisherman knows, fish can be quite slippery. That's why, to help them grasp their prey better, osprey have a reversible outer toe! Apart from owls, they are the only raptor species to have this ability.

(Image: An osprey (Pandion haliaetus) with a fishy meal by Willian Canosa)

If you like what I do, consider leaving a tip or buying me a kofi!

[taxonomytournament]

Taxonomy Tournament: Birds

Accipitriformes. This order contains most birds of prey: hawks, eagles, vultures, and kites

Corvides. This sub-order is made up of corvids (jays, ravens, crows and magpies), as well as small meat-eating birds of the Old World, such as currawongs and butcherbirds

[webberwoof]

ive wanted to get a close up pic of a black shouldered kite for so long and it finally happened 😭😭😭 SO HAPPY

[witchstone]

long-crested eagle (lophaetus occipitalis) from saturday! we watched him swoop off the post and disappear into the long grass on the side of the road, only to return empy-clawed a few seconds later

[herpsandbirds]

Black Baza (Aviceda leuphotes), family Accipitridae, order Accipitriformes, India

photograph by Risav.Pal

[alonglistofbirds]

[2066/11056] Cape vulture - Gyps coprotheres

Order: Accipitriformes Family: Accipitridae

Photo credit: Albert Froneman via Macaulay Library

[alphynix]

Spectember/Spectober 2023 #07: Terror Eagle

September might have ended, but guess what? I am not remotely done with this yet so we're continuing on.

Now it's Spectober.

(Also just a reminder: I am not currently taking new requests. I've got far too many existing ones that I'm still working through!)

Someone who identified themself only as "Adam" asked for "eagles evolving into terrestrial predators to pursue larger prey":

A flightless eagle occupying an apex predator niche in the same island chain as the giant herbivorous tegu, Terraetus adamii is descended from a species similar to the modern harpy eagle. It isn't substantially larger than the biggest modern eagles – standing about 1.2m tall (~4') – but it's certainly much more massive, weighing around 25kg (~55lbs).

In the absence of other large terrestrial predators its ancestors originally took up a caracara-like lifestyle, preferring hunting on foot over flying, before gradually becoming totally flightless and converging on terror birds with large heavy skulls, reduced wings, and powerful legs.

Terraetus' head is only very sparsely feathered, an adaptation for feeding inside the carcasses of large prey, which it dispatches using a combination of kicking and blows from its large hooked beak. It's usually a solitary hunter that can tackle prey up to two or three times its own weight – preferencing the juveniles of the herbivorous tegu – but during the breeding season pairs will occasionally hunt cooperatively to take down larger targets.

Despite possessing sharp beaks and talons, these weapons aren't actually used in fights between individuals of this species. Instead they bodily shove each other back and forth, battering at each other with large bony knobs that grow from the hand bones of each wing.