Link > Harpy Video Clips

Poised on her nest high in the canopy of a South American rain forest, a female harpy eagle (harpia harpyja) strikes an imperious pose. Feathers atop her head fan into a crest, commonly displayed when the eagles hear a noise. Smaller feathers create a facial disk that may focus sound waves to enhance hearing, a feature also found in owls. Weighing up to 18 pounds, equipped with a seven-foot wingspan, and armed with talons longer than a grizzly bear's claws, harpies are superb predators that can lift up to 3/4 of their own weight. Early explorers in South America were awed when they saw these eagles seize and lift monkeys and sloths high into theforest canopy. They called them harpies for the predatory monsters - half women and half bird - of Greek mythology. More recently, artists drew from harpy eagles to create Fawkes the Phoenix for the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Harpy eagles are found in tropical lowland forests from southeastern Mexico to northern Argentina and southern Brazil. They are dark grey overall, with an ash-grey head and white belly. Females are about one-third larger than males and hunt heftier prey, but males are more agile and fly faster. These compimentary abilities increase a pair's chances of finding food. Harpy eagles eat a wide variety of prey, including 17-pound two-toed sloths, 11-pound red howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys, macaws, parrots, and coatis. Neil spent a great deal of time studying what harpy eagles eat, since knowing their diet will help determine the size and type of habitat preserve needed to safeguard them.

For nest sites, harpy eagles prefer trees with widely spaced branches, which allow clear flight paths to and from the nest. In Guyana, they favor the silk-cotton or Ceiba tree, and usually build nests 90 to 130 feet off the ground. Females lay one to two eggs in a huge nest made of sticks and branches. Incubation takes 53 to 58 days, but only one chick survives. As soon as a chick hatches it gets all the attention; the other egg perishes from lack of incubation. Harpies invest a great deal of time in caring for their young, feeding them for ten months or more. Unlike mice or other animals that breed frequently and have many young, harpies, which raise just one chick every two to three years, can't afford to lose a single chick. It will take 4-1/2 to 6 months for the young harpy to fledge, but the young bird will stay in its parent's territory for at least a year. They become sexually mature at four to five years of age, and may return back to their natal tree to raise their own broods.

The harpy eagle is listed on the IUCN RedList of threatened species. For more information, I highly recommend the University of Michigan's Animal Diversity Web.

References
Rettig, Neil; National Geographic; February 1995; vol 187,#2; pp. 40-49.
Wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpy_Eagle