page_title: Steppe eagle
section_title: Interspecific predatory relationships
hierarchical_section_title: Steppe eagle / Dietary biology / Interspecific predatory relationships
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Заповедник «Чёрные земли», КалмыкияEnglish: Fox family in the Chyornye Zemli Nature Reserve, Republic of Kalmykia This image is related to the protected area of Russia number 0800027 This template and pages using it are maintained by the Russian WLE team. Please read the guidelines before making any changes that can affect the database!
context_page_description: The steppe eagle is a large bird of prey. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. The steppe eagle’s well-feathered legs illustrate it to be a member of the subfamily Aquilinae, also known as the “booted eagles”. This species was once considered to be closely related to the non-migratory tawny eagle and the two forms have previously been treated as conspecific. They were split based on pronounced differences in morphology and anatomy; two molecular studies, each based on a very small number of genes, indicate that the species are distinct but disagree over how closely related they are.
  The steppe eagle is in many ways a peculiar species of eagle. It is a specialized predator of ground squirrels on the breeding ground, also taking other rather small mammals and other prey, doing so more often when ground squirrels are less consistently found. In rather treeless areas of the steppe habitats, these eagles tend to nest on a slightly rise, often on or near an outcrop, but may even the flat, wide-open ground, in a rather flat nest. They are the only eagle to nest primarily on the ground.
context_section_description: The steppe eagle shares its distribution with several other birds of prey that can compete for resources. Most similar in feeding niche are largely other eagles, many of which are also similarly migratory. One eagle of similar central distribution is the eastern imperial eagles. The imperial eagle has a similar morphology and can broadly overlap in food selection. It also takes many ground squirrels but is generally less specialized on them during breeding, and often takes similar or larger numbers of prey such as hares, hedgehogs, hamsters and assorted birds both large and medium. In general, the dietary biology is better understood, prey is taken of more diverse sizes and the prey spectrum is far more diverse (perhaps nearly three times as many recorded prey species) in the imperial species. The average weight taken of prey like young marmots is similar in both eagles, averaging 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) in the eastern imperial while the steppe also takes marmots of around this size. Although not common, the imperial eagle can sometimes take prey weighing over 2 kg (4.4 lb), probably rather more frequently than the steppe eagle. It is possible that the steppe eagle gained the preference for relatively more numerous and social but quite small mammals as prey to avoid heavier competition over slightly larger but often more dispersed terrestrial mammals (i.e. hares, hedgehogs, etc.), especially those taken by imperial eagles. Also, the imperial eagle is rather more predatory in food obtainment while wintering, not infrequently eschewing the more vulnerable nestling water birds in the Indian subcontinent to take many adult birds such as waterfowl and coots. The eastern imperial eagle differs most significantly from steppe eagles in nesting habits, favoring tall trees, sometimes in fairly well-wooded areas, which quite contrary to the steppe eagles ground nesting preferences. The migratory course used by imperial eagles is largely the same as the steppe eagle but the imperial is the far less numerous migrant (also more frequently overwintering near their breeding ground) and radiates less far in winter (especially in Africa). Despite the steppe eagle averaging scarcely smaller, data from both breeding and wintering areas indicates that the imperial eagle tends to be behaviorally dominant over steppe eagles. This has manifested in full or partial displacement of steppe eagles locally using pylons as nesting sites by imperial eagles. Furthermore, at shared feeding sites, the steppe eagle tends to back down to the imperial eagle, often allowing it to feed first despite occasional displacement of imperials with full crops. On occasion, in India, steppe eagles succeed in pirating prey from imperial eagles, normally in cooperating parties of steppe eagles. In at least one case in India, the steppe eagle was the aggressor in an interaction with an eastern imperial eagle, causing the two eagles to lock talons and cartwheel down with uncertain results. While the eagles are expected to correspond their sizes in hierarchy when nests are located in the same general area, with the steppe considered as generally subordinate to the imperial which is itself subordinate to the golden eagle, interactions in the Altai region suggest a more complex interspecific relationship. There one study reported several aggressive interactions with both imperial and golden eagles and the steppes were surprisingly the aggressors in each. In one instance, a golden eagle was fiercely attack by a steppe eagle who appeared to dominate the interaction, grabbing the more formidable-armed golden in air and driving it forcefully to the ground (although the golden eagle was not killed).
  Much has been written about what separates the steppe from the tawny eagle but little to no interactions between the species have been noted in the wild. Beyond being strongly allopatric, wintering steppe eagles usually use slightly different habitats, favoring available wetlands quite apart from the arid wooded savanna and semi-desert areas preferred by tawny eagles. The tawny eagle, despite
caption: Red fox make their home in the steppe habitat quite often (as seen) and both the steppe eagle and fox are known to threaten each other, especially the young of the other predator.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D800", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2019:06:14 18:02:03", "Image ExifOffset": "220", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1002", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5937", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "13", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:05:13 17:38:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:05:13 17:38:54", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1040241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "7400879/1000000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "500", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "5", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4905", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3629", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1678051/8192", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1678051/8192", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "4", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "500", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "6027945", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[200, 500, 28/5, 28/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "200.0-500.0 mm f/5.6"}