What are the basic requirements for any animal to survive in a given area? Essentially they are; food, shelter, water and a place to breed or nest in the case of birds. But how far will they go to establish and maintain a territory? Will they fight to the death?
Yesterday Andrew Anderson’s neighbor found a pair of young male Jackal Buzzards Buteo rufofuscus that had fought to the death. Both had latched their talons into each other’s breasts and couldn’t free themselves before crashing into the earth, which he suspects killed them.
To see raptors competing over territories by grabbing one another by the talons is not uncommon but usually they manage to release their grip before hitting the ground. Could this unfortunate accident be a fairly common occurrence especially amongst younger birds?
This was a very sad event but an interesting one never-the-less.
Nigel Anderson – Guide for African Insight
Email: HYPERLINK “mailto:nigel@africaninsight.co.za”
Photograph: Andrew Anderson
African Insight 