Real encounters with a feathered phantasma
Published in: Appalachia
Winter/Spring 2023
As a child, I thought the word magic meant “not real.” Then,
one day, I thumbed through the pages of a picture book and discovered
an eagle whose piercing eyes seared right through me. From that moment,
magic was not a word, but a feeling. The eagle’s eyes were deep and all-knowing,
like those of a villain in a superhero magazine, and I was captivated
in the root sense of the word—captured. I knew the eagle had to be an actual
species, yet the ghost-gray face and crown of dark feathers seemed entirely
drawn from the realm of fantasy.
I learned that the bird was a harpy eagle, the largest raptor in South America,
and that it survived in the Amazon by killing monkeys and sloths. The
wings, when fully open, would easily cover the breadth of my family’s couch.
The talons were as large as grizzly paws. Hardly anyone had ever seen one,
which, in my opinion, made it a feathered version of Bigfoot.
I paged onward and saw photos of caimans, jaguars, and toucans, all of
which held my interest in a more predictable way. When I returned to the
photo of the harpy, another shiver of excitement radiated down my skinny
limbs. The harpy eagle must be supernatural, I concluded; otherwise, how
could it have such an effect on me?
I told this story a half-century later to my husband, Scott, as we
traveled by river boat into the Manu Biosphere Reserve of Peru. We were on
an ecological tour of the Amazon rainforest that I hoped would fulfill my
lifelong desire to see a harpy eagle in its natural environment. Though we saw
scores of birds and other tropical creatures on that trip, I never saw a harpy
eagle. The species seemed more elusive than ever.
Three years later, Scott saw a job announcement on the internet: “Field
assistant needed for research on monkeys and harpy eagles in Peru.” His
words seemed unbelievable, so I rose from my chair to look at the website
myself. It wasn’t a joke: The ad was posted by Dara Adams, a PhD candidate
at Ohio State University. Applicants had to have previous field experience and
were required to commit to a six-week stay. My career as a wildlife biologist
qualified me for the position, and Scott encouraged me to apply. Three
months later, I was on my way to the Amazon with a suitcase of field clothes,
still stunned that my application had risen to the top of the stack. It seemed
like I’d found magic again.
My initial sighting of a harpy was, I confess, anticlimactic. I had been
hired to observe a harpy nest in the “heart” of the Amazon, yet it was a
40-minute walk from an upscale ecotourism lodge. Moreover, the nest was
a well-known highlight of that area, and anyone with a guide could see it.
When I peered through the spotting scope across a distance of about 40 yards,
the fabulous harpy occupied less than half of the scope’s field of vision. The
bird seemed scarcely bigger than a bald eagle, and its size was further dwarfed
by the humongous limb that served as its perch. Unlike the harpy in my
childhood picture book, this was a nestling, approximately four months old,
adorned in pure white feathers. It looked small in comparison to its nest that
was the size of a banquet table.
Yet after a more prolonged squint through the scope, I discovered a creature
more dazzling than the one from my childhood. Because of its white plumage,
the black eyes and beak were strikingly dark, and those eyes were focused
directly on me. Moreover, it was not frozen in time, but very much alive. As
I watched, the eaglet became aware of me and elevated its feathered crest—a
splendid d.cor that apparently served as a facial expression on top of its head.
The entire universe seemed to fade as the harpy and I regarded each other. No
longer did I notice the sweltering heat that pressed against me, the streams of
sweat that drizzled down my face, the horde of mosquitos that dined on my
blood. While I sat there transfixed, the chick stretched its neck upward like
a periscope, then shifted its head from side to side with obvious curiosity. I
knew that the sideways motions added three-dimensionality to both sight and
sound, yet the movements seemed like a performance of some kind—like the
trained gestures of a Hindu temple dancer with a similar, mesmerizing effect.
Eventually, the nestling lost interest in me and lowered its crest. I drew
away from the scope and rubbed my eyes, thinking that the show was over.
But no—it had just begun. At that moment, a bigger, more impressive harpy
arrived: the chick’s audacious mom. She soared in for a landing on outstretched
wings that indeed would have spanned the length of my childhood
couch. Whereas the nestling was “only” a bit larger than a bald eagle, this
bird was nearly twice that size. When she pulled her wings inward, they still
hung away from her body like the arms of a thick-muscled wrestler. My eye
returned to the scope, and the magnificent creature swiveled her head and
gave me a scrutinous look. Her eyes held the calloused curiosity of a predator,
and for a moment, I felt I was being evaluated as potential prey.
The chick lifted its beak straight up and began to cry. After regarding the
open mouth, the mother waddled into the deep nest and came up with a furry arm, which I identified as having belonged to a two-toed sloth from the two
visible claws. She propped the arm against the rim of the nest, ripped away
a piece of flesh, and neatly stuffed it into the open mouth of her offspring.
For several minutes, the female ripped and stuffed chunks of meat, while
the nestling screamed as if each morsel would be its last. Though the sloth
carcass was right under its beak, the chick apparently could not eat without
its mother’s aid. Later, I learned that the chick would remain dependent on its
parents for ten months or longer. Because of this slow rate of maturity, harpy
eagles usually raise only one chick every two to three years.
Eventually, the female crouched, sprang from the nest, and took to the
sky. Neither she nor the male would return for three days. In contrast, my
gig as nest observer had just begun, and I would be spending more time with
the chick than would its own parents. Without parental guardianship or the
comradery of siblings, the harpy eaglet had to figure out the rules of life on its
own—and I had a front-row seat to witness its learning process.
One of the first lessons I witnessed seemed related to gravity, an important
concept for a young bird when it finally hops out of its lofty nest onto
the nearest limb. For hawks and eagles, this life stage is called branching, because youngsters are still growing feathers and are incapable of flight. The
harpy eaglet branched within a week of my arrival, and shortly thereafter I
witnessed its self-paced lessons about the fate of anything that falls. The eaglet
ripped a short twiglet off the limb where it perched, let it fall from its beak,
and watched it hit the ground 60 feet below. It repeated this action several
times, and the twiglet always fell in the same direction—straight down. The
eaglet was quite absorbed in this little game and seemed fascinated with the
consistent outcome. I observed its innate curiosity and its ability to learn
from experimentation and recognized these traits as crucial for becoming a
successful adult.
As the eaglet grew more competent, it began to explore the vast expanse of
limbs that served as its personal jungle gym. I watched how it moved upward
through the tree by hop-flapping from one limb to the next. Then, after great
deliberation, it experimented with short, awkward glides that carried it down
to lower branches. In other aspects of home schooling, the chick learned to
preen its feathers, catch flies in the nest, and nibble on carcasses. It often
pulled sticks out of the nest and reinserted them in new locations, an activity
that seemed both playful and instructive.
I never tired of the eaglet’s animated gestures and poses. Sometimes, it
bounced in the nest like a kid on a trampoline, or waddled sideways on a
branch, parrot-style. To my amazement, the eaglet could not only elevate
its neck and shift its head when facing forward, but it could also perform
this feat with its head facing backward. When it napped, it often drooped
its head like an old man asleep on a bus. This human-like posture intrigued
me because most hawks and owls sleep with their heads erect.
When awake, the fledgling raised its crest at the slightest sound. If I
coughed or moved my chair, I became a curious object that required the
chick’s undivided attention. I loved those brief moments of being part of its
world. Despite our taxonomic differences, I knew we shared similar sequences
of DNA that granted us eyes and ears and the ability to discern each other.
Together (it seemed), we watched noisy flocks of macaws and parrots wing
overhead and musky herds of peccaries snort below. We both sweltered in the
heat, got wet when it rained.
On my final visit to the nest, I stared into those coal black eyes for the last
time and knew I was under the harpy’s spell more than ever. When I was a
child, the eagle had enthralled me with its shamanic face and its aura of mystery,
whereas now I was captivated with the movements of its body and the
skills it had learned through experimentation. Magic, I realized, doesn’t need to rely on mystery; it can be based on intimate understanding. It can happen
whenever a person takes the time to learn about another species. I still marvel
at those powerful eyes, the ghost-like face, and the crown of feathers radiating
skyward. But now, after witnessing the harpy’s intelligence and adaptability,
after watching a young harpy grow, I’m charmed by the spirit behind that
magical face and by the presence of a curiosity as great as my own.