Booted eagle

The booted eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus) is a medium-sized mostly migratory bird of prey with a wide distribution in the Palearctic and southern Asia, wintering in the tropics of Africa and Asia, with a small, disjunct breeding population in south-western Africa. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae.

The booted eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus) is a medium-sized mostly migratory bird of prey with a wide distribution in the Palearctic and southern Asia, wintering in the tropics of Africa and Asia, with a small, disjunct breeding population in south-western Africa. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. ==Taxonomy== The booted eagle was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the eagle, falcons and relatives in the genus Falco and coined the binomial name Falco pennatus. Gmelin based his description on "Le Faucon Patu" or "Falco pedibus pennatis" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson. Brisson had examined a specimen in the collection of Madame de Bandeville who was also known as Marie Anne Catherine Bigot de Graveron (1709-1787). The booted eagle is now placed in the genus Hieraaetus that was introduced in 1844 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek hierax meaning "hawk" with aetos meaning "eagle". The specific epithet pennatus is Latin and means "feathered". The booted eagle has no recognised subspecies. Based on recent genetic research some authors reclassified this species to the genus Aquila, along with some or all other Hieraaetus species. As it is the type species of Hieraaetus, should any of the hawk-eagles have been retained in a distinct genus then a new name for that group would have been necessary. However, DNA research has shown it forms a monophyletic clade with Ayres's hawk eagle, Wahlberg's eagle, the little eagle and the pygmy eagle and this clade is often treated as forming the genus Hieraeetus and most reference lists currently use H. pennata. Although some authors name a number of subspecies most now treat it as a monotypic species. Aquila minut described by Brehm (1831) is this bird. The fossil bird described under the same name by Milne-Edwards (1871) is preliminarily known as Hieraaetus edwardsi, but might belong in Aquila. ==Description== The booted eagle is a small eagle with a length of and a wingspan of ; males weigh about and females about . There are two relatively distinct plumage forms; pale individuals are mainly light grey with a darker head and flight feathers. The other form has mid-brown plumage with dark grey flight feathers. These discrete colour morphs follow a Mendelian inheritance pattern, where the paler allele is dominant. The dark colour morph represents 20% of the population in South Africa, but it is much more common in eastern populations such as in Russia. Booted eagles are typically seen in pairs or as solitary individuals. The call is a shrill kli-kli-kli. ==Distribution and habitat== The booted eagle has breeding populations in many different regions in both the northern and southern hemisphere. These include southern Europe, North Africa and across Asia, and also in western South Africa and Namibia. The northern populations are migratory spending November to February in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, while the small southern African populations is sedentary. This is a species of wooded, often hilly countryside with some open areas. It breeds in rocky, broken terrain but migrants will use almost any type of habitat other than dense forest. The birds of the Palearctic breeding population tend to nest in coniferous or deciduous woodlands and often in trees. ===Breeding=== This eagle lays 1–2 eggs in a nest built from sticks and lined with green leaves in a tree or on a crag, or it takes over the disused nest of another large bird such as a black kite or grey heron. The female incubates the egg for around 45 days and is fed by the male, after hatching she guards the nest and the young while the male provides all the food. The chick fledges after 70–75 days. Booted eagles are monogamous and perform courtship rituals of sophisticated flight demonstrations. ==References== ==Further reading== ==External links== Booted Eagle species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds Booted eagle Photos at Oiseaux.net Ageing and sexing (PDF; 4.2 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze Booted Eagle from Nagpur, India, photo by Anuj Kale Booted Eagle on the Global Raptor Information Network Booted eagle Structured guide to the species in southern Africa

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