Notes on the Harpy Eagle in British Guiana

Abstract

AnTOUG the Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) is the heaviest and most powerful of all eagles, a truly dramatic bird, little has been published concerning its life history. Most accounts appeared prior to 1900 and are largely anecdotal. The species has a wide range extending throughout tropical America from southern Mexico to northern Argentina but is nowhere numerous. Chubb (1916) quotes from the works of Schomburgk (1848), Quelch (1890), Lloyd (1897), and Brown (1876), in briefly describing its habits and general distribution in British Guiana. Bond (1927) observed a nest in northeastern Brazil and took from it two eggs, 12 days apart, the second perhaps a replacement.