Seeing the Harpy Eagle

It took quite a bit of maneuvering for our skilled guides, Ron Allicock and Luke Johnson, to spot the fledgling harpy eagle perched on a branch of the ceiba, then get us into a position where we could see it, too. But it was there, it was there, and our hearts overfilled with joy at the prospect of seeing even a bit of it.

We practically bent double to get the scopes on the bird, more than a hundred feet overhead in the very top of the emergent ceiba tree.Mike Weedon gets an eyeful. Unnh!

For the next forty minutes, we admired this from our contorted positions:
just the face of a young harpy. It was enough. It was wonderful. Every now and then the breeze would blow its feathers and raise its double crest and we'd sigh in admiration. We were looking at a harpy eagle, the most important bit of a harpy eagle, and a baby harpy at that.

Here's Ron Allicock, who found it for us in the first place. Obviously, the nest was a stakeout; it was a known nest, discovered when logging crews came to fell some trees in a selective cut. (The ceiba will not be cut, and the harpies are doing fine). But it takes some serious doing to see the eaglet even when you find the nest, because at the time we visited, it was trying its wings and "branching" all over the enormous tree, sometimes in view and mostly not, obscured by the canopy below the emergent tree. In fact, the second group of our tour who visited the nest the next morning missed seeing the eaglet. Let's have a moment of silence for those hopeful birders. No gloating here.


But Luke wanted more for us, so he and another expert guide set quietly off through the jungle to try to find a better vantage point.


And find it they did.
O.M.G. Now we had not just the head, but the whole enchilada, fluffy harpy eaglet bloomers, massive talons and all. Whooooooo.

The eaglet noticed.

But it preened and seemed fairly unconcerned about these primates far below which were after all too large to practice upon.


Harpy eaglets apparently come one to a nest. Though two eggs are laid, the second is abandoned as soon as the first hatches, and all the parents' focus goes to raising the sole princeling or princess. A harpy eaglet stays in the vicinity of the nest and in the care of its parents for a year or more, waiting for the occasional sloth/monkey to be airflighted in, and growing stronger until it's ready to try its six-foot wings and catch its own prey. With a reproductive rate like that, it's no wonder this apex predator is so rare.

Luke watches Erica get her camera lined up to digiscope the eaglet.
And the eaglet looks right back.

We quietly withdrew, grateful for this audience with a mythic bird.

Keep growing and thriving, prince or princess, whichever you be. Thank you, Surama Eco-Lodge, thank you Ron Allicock and Luke Johnson, US AID and the Guyana Sustainable Tourism Initiative, for taking us to the nest of the great forest harpy. I am grateful to be able to share the experience with so many people, and hopeful that one harpy eagle is ultimately worth more to the people of the area than many, many fallen logs.

Go see. Give Guyana, its giant otters, its potoos and giant anteaters and harpy eagles some of your travel budget if you can. It will not disappoint.

Back here on earth, I will be speaking and showing my paintings at the Riverside Artists' Cooperative Gallery, 188 Front Street, Marietta, Ohio 45750 at 6 pm on Friday, March 13. For more information please call (740) 376-0797. And don't forget to blurt "BLOG" when you introduce yourself!

Great Big Freaky Bug

Surama Eco-Lodge is the sweetest little place. How I wish it hadn't poured like monkeys the whole time we were there, for we had to forego our afternoon hike. It's nestled in fabulous habitat next to the mountain range, and you can see tons of great birds and animals there. Once again, the food was terrific, the hosts warm and knowledgeable.

Erica and I took a good long nap, to the sound of rain on the tin roof. It was delicious, as was dinner. Man, Guyana had such good food--lots of fresh vegetables, beans and rice, and chicken in savory sauces. It may not have been flashy, but it was just what I needed.

I love this shot, the road stretching like a lighted path to the mountains. I could only imagine what birds we might have seen there. I want to go back.
Just before dark there was a break in the rain, and these clouds came scudding across the landscape. One, like the tail of a giant anteater diving into the trees. I don't think I've ever seen a cloud quite like that back home.
You may be sure our group of curious naturalists found ways to amuse ourselves. For one, there was a House Frog.
He was on duty for roaches, crickets, katydids and spiders, and most welcome. Just don't land on my face in the night and we're good.

I wonder what he would have done with this--my first ever lanternfly Fulgora laternaria.
I was BESIDE MYSELF. I'd read about this beast all my life, had always wanted to see it in the most eager, Science Chimpy way. (Thank you, DOD, for keeping us in National Geographic our entire childhood. I believe that magazine changed my life.) The head looks so much like a caiman that it flips me out; it's a beautiful example of the intelligence of evolutionary design. Yes, you read me right. And I am messin' with your head.
I mean, look how the "eye" is reflective, just as it would be if the lanternfly really were a winged lizard.

The eyes of the creature are the two dark spots on the "caiman's" neck. So the peanut-shaped fright mask is actually a headdress or helmet. Pretty cute, when you look at it that way. Like a pope's hat. It was originally thought to be luminescent, hence the name lanternfly. Believe it or not, this is just an overgrown planthopper. Splendidly, magnificently, over the top-tropically overgrown.

Here's the WW II bomber, preparing for takeoff...

Messing with it a bit, we got it to spread its wings. It jumped and fell, oops! giving us its ventral view, which looked an awful lot like a cicada to me. You can see the sucking mouthparts, the dark tube running down between its legs. Again, very cicada-like. It just drinks plant juice, that's all, and is perfectly harmless to people.


This thing has the defenses! Look at those eyespots on the underwings. So if it can't scare you with its gatorhead hat, it flashes big owl eyes at you. It must be quite delicious to invest so much in scaring away potential predators.



Big bug. Mike Weedon looks terrified. Looks dangerous, but the only problem with it is that legend has it if you're bitten by the machaca, you have to have sex within 24 hours or die badly. Thank God no one was bitten. The pool of candidates was rather small; everybody was married or otherwise committed, and it was so disgustingly hot and humid that, well, let's just say it was not an aphrodiasical environment. I felt like a slimy toad the whole time. Had it bitten me, I might have had to just go ahead and die.