The mighty African fish eagle is the bird of the week
They have a distinctive black, brown, and white plumage.
THE African fish eagle is a common year round resident in the East and Northern South Africa, but absent from Namaqualand and Karoo regions. They like large rivers, lakes, pans and dams with large trees.
These eagles are also found in coastal lagoons and estuaries like the ones on the South Coast of KZN. They are usually found in pairs and perch in daylight for hours on tall trees near water.
The fish eagle hunt from their perch, swooping at fish and catching it with their feet up to 15cm below the surface, without checking their flight. They may submerge at times and often rob other fish eating birds of their prey.
Apart from feeding on fish usually up to 1kg in weight, they eat carrion nestling and eggs of waterbirds, even adult water birds up to the size of a flamingo. Monitor lizards are another favourite, but rarely dassies, frogs and monkeys are taken.
These eagles are mostly vocal at dawn, often calling in flight a highly pitched ringing “kyow kow kow”, the male pitch is higher and females often sing in duet with the males. Breeding takes place from March until September.
The nest is a large pile of sticks, the bowl being lined with grass, green leaves and reeds. The site can be four to 22m above ground in the fork of a tree and sometimes on a cliff ledge.
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Usually two plain white eggs are laid, incubation lasts 42 to 45 days and the nestling period is 70 to 75 days. The young are dependent on parents for 60 days after their first flight.
The isiZulu name is iNkwazi and in Afrikaans die visarend. It is the national bird of Malawi.
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