Bird of the week – Southern banded snake eagle

It is considered a RDB (red data book) bird.

This is our second smallest eagle with a weight of just under one kilogramme.

A rare localised resident confined only to the eastern coastal woodlands of KZN all the way up the African coast to Southern Somalia. It is considered a RDB (red data book) bird.

These eagles are shy and secretive. Usually perches quietly in leafy cover, but sometimes conspicuously in the open, scanning the ground for prey.

They seldom soar above the forest, but fly from perch to perch with quick shallow wing beats.

Food preference is snakes, lizards, small rodents, birds and insects.

They betray their presence from cover with a rapid high pitched call ko – ko – ko – kaau.

Breeding takes place in September. The nest being a platform of twigs in the shape of a bowl, lined with green leaves in the fork of a forest tree well below the canopy, seven to eight metres above the ground.

One white or greenish white egg is laid and the incubation and nestling period are unrecorded.

There is no Zulu name and in Afrikaans die dubbelbandslangarend.