The eagle and the bats
I am making this post not because I have some beautiful photos that will win awards, but because I want to show how photography can be used under tough conditions to tell a story. Telling stories is what makes me want to find what I call verbs to photograph, something is happening. This happened on Saturday October 22, 2022 , during the trip to Letaba in Kruger National Park for a birding weekend arranged by the Honorary Rangers.
We were told about two Wahlberg’s eagles (Hieraaetus wahlbergi) that sit up in the large apple-leaf trees near Letaba bridge, come out with the bats and pursue the bats as prey. So we set off to the bridge at sunset for sundowners and birding. I was not sure if I would be able to capture anything, because it was getting darker and darker, and the horizon was covered in thunderclouds. But I kept my camera at the ready, with its trusty 400mm f2.8 lens. The wide aperture allows for fairly low light photos, but this was pushing the limit of camera body and lens both. The fact that I needed a high shutter speed to capture the eagles doing their bathawk impersonation made it even more of a challenge.
Soon the number of little swifts (Apus affinis) in the sky began to decrease, and a sudden rush of bats appeared out from under the bridge. As they did, two Walberg’s eagles took to the air, and after not much time the first eagle caught a bat and went off to another tree to eat it. There are two photos in this set where you can see a bat in the eagle’s claws.
Crunchy as they are, a single bat was not much for the eagle, and soon it was off hunting again. It made a few misses before it connected with its prey again, and off it went to a tree to eat it.
So these photos try to illustrate that story, and the events that took place. Technically they are terrible photos, but as information resources, they tell the tale of the eagle and the bats.
