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| Rock Eagle Owl Bubo bengalensis
- Being mobbed |
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| Photographer : | © Rohan Kamath |
| Location : | outskirts of Pune, Maharashtra, India |
| Date : |
9 January - 3 March 2011 |
| English synonyms: | Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Common Eagle Owl, Common Eagle-Owl, Great Eagle Owl, Great Eagle-Owl, Eagle Owl, Great Horned Owl, Rock Eagle-Owl, Indian Eagle Owl, Indian Eagle-Owl |
| Bird Family : | Strigidae - Typical Owls |
| Bird Group : | STRIGIFORMES |
| Red Data Status : | Least Concern |
| Remarks : | We have been observing a site for these beautiful and ferocious birds for the past few years near Pune. It was absolutely thrilling to see the 3 new born chicks with a gap of about a day each at the nest one fine January evening. The next day I carried my camera along to click a few record images. The adult male would sometimes kill and hide prey in one fixed spot on the cliff face adjacent to the nest in the afternoons from where the female would collect it a couple of hours later and feed the chicks. Later, the female too started hunting and hiding the prey at the same place. The male seemed to have left the site when the chicks were about 3 weeks old. One of the more interesting prey items was an Indian Gerbill Tatera indica.
As the days passed by, the chicks grew up and slowly started exploring the cliff on which the nest was. The two older chicks dominated the kills so much that the youngest chick died early probably of starvation. Every evening the female was mobbed by about 50+ crows for about an hour as she defended her nest. Unfortunately, the crows eventually got the better of her, and we found her dead and eaten by crows sometime around mid February. Over the next couple of weeks, the remaining two chicks, who by now had just about learned to fly short bursts, were also found dead and eaten by crows.
It is very saddening to have lost this wonderful species from a pristine habitat. However, since it was all a part of the natural cycle, I am hopeful that some owls from nearby nest sites will re-populate this one in the coming years.
Note:- All images have been taken from a considerable distance, so as to avoid any disturbance to the bird. They are all large crops of the original. They are solely for the purpose of documentation of behaviour. Most of the observation on site was done from even further away by means of binoculars and a spotting scope.
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