page_title: Tawny eagle
section_title: Eggs
hierarchical_section_title: Tawny eagle / Breeding biology / Eggs
caption_attribution_description: English&#x3a;&#32; Eggs of tawny eagle Two specimens of the same spawn&#160;; collection of Jacques Perrin de Brichambaut.Français&#x202f;&#x3a;&#32; Œufs de Aigle ravisseur Deux spécimens de la même ponte&#160;; collection Jacques Perrin de Brichambaut.
context_page_description: The tawny eagle is a large, long-lived bird of prey. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Its heavily feathered legs illustrate it to be a member of the subfamily Aquilinae, also known as “booted eagles”. Tawny eagles have an extensive but discontinuous breeding range that constitutes much of the African continent as well as the Indian subcontinent, with rare residency occurring in the southern Middle East. Throughout its range, it favours open dry habitats such as semideserts, deserts steppes, or savanna plains. Despite its preference for areas of aridity, the species seldom occurs in areas where trees are entirely absent. It is a resident breeder which lays one to three eggs in a stick nest mostly commonly in the crown of a tree. The tawny eagle is perhaps the most high opportunistic of all of its taxonomic clan, and often scavenges on carrion or engages in kleptoparasitism towards other carnivorous animals but is also a bold and active predator, often of relatively large and diverse prey. It is estimated that tawny eagles can reach the age of 16 years old. Nonetheless, precipitous declines have been detected throughout the tawny eagle’s range.
context_section_description: Eggs are laid at intervals of several days, mainly timed to the dry season but at times also in the wet season. Evidence from the Kalahari Desert shows that egg-laying is timed to exploit a number of food resources with warmer weather in sync with young in the nest, such as various small mammals and the springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) lambing season.  In India, intervals were more prolonged when the habitat was less optimal. Of 26 tawny eagle nests monitored between 1988 - 1996 in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, 84.6% of the laying dates occurred between May and June. These laying dates are similar to populations in Zambia, Zimbabwe  and the Maasai Mara region in Kenya as well as elsewhere in southern and southeastern Africa. Cases of eggs being laid in southern Africa in July and August may be cases of replacement clutches. Incidental data on laying phenology from north and West Africa shows the tawny eagles of the area lay eggs usually in the earlier part of the year, i.e. January to April; in Ghana egg-laying may range from October to February, though largely is in December-January; November-February egg-laying occurred in Ethiopia and apparently around April in Morocco. Showing the variation in India, in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, tawny eagles are mainly laying eggs in January while in Kutch and Jaisalmer, the young are already leaving the nests. Clutch sizes range from 1 to 3 eggs per nest, but average 1.7 eggs per clutch. In drier years in Hwange National Park, clutch sizes appear to become reduced. The eggs are white but variously and usually faintly marked with brown, varying from unmarked sometimes to quite well-marked with spots and blotches of reddish brown. In 67 eggs of the nominate subspecies, the eggs were 64 to 75.7 mm (2.52 to 2.98 in) in height by 49.9 to 60 mm (1.96 to 2.36 in) in diameter, with an average of 69.6 mm × 54.8 mm (2.74 in × 2.16 in) in the sample while another 30 from the same race averaged 71.5 mm × 56.3 mm (2.81 in × 2.22 in). In A. r. vindhiana, 80 eggs measured from 58 to 75.1 mm (2.28 to 2.96 in) by 46.4 to 57.6 mm (1.83 to 2.27 in), with an average of 66 mm × 52.8 mm (2.60 in × 2.08 in).
caption: Aquila rapax - MHNT
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