Q1: What is their hunting success rate?
A1: Not very high. In observed cases, the rate was 75% for adult birds and 0% for young birds, which means that young birds immediately after becoming independent of their parents are almost never successful in hunting. This gives us a good indication of how difficult it is for young birds to survive.
Q2: Where do they hunt?
A2: They hunt mostly in forests made up of trees that lose their rounded leaves in winter (broadleaf forests), which provide many small animals on which the birds can feed.
Q3: What do they eat?
A3: Mainly snakes, birds that are on the large side, and hares.
Q4: Do they have many chicks?
A4: No. Only one egg is produced from one pair of parents per season.
Q5: Where do they make their nests?
A5: In Japanese red pine or fir forests in deep and steep valleys in the lower areas of mountains.
Q6: How large are their nests?
A6: About 1.5 meters in diameter -- probably about the size of your height.
Q7: What are their nests made of?
A7: Tree branches.
Q8: Which of the birds builds the nest, the male or the female?
A8: The male in almost all cases.
Q9: When do they lay eggs?
A9: In Hiroshima Prefecture, around the end of March.
Q10: At what age are they considered to be adults?
A10: This is not clearly understood, but it is believed to take about ten years for the birds to become fully mature.
Q11: At what speed can they fly in terms of kilometers per hour?
A11: Usually they fly at a speed of about 40 to 50 kilometers per hour. But the fastest speed recorded during a dive was over 250 kilometers per hour.
Q12: How good is their eyesight?
A12: This is not clearly understood, but they seem to at least be able to see better than a telescope of 20-times magnification.
Q13: How can you distinguish them from other hawk species?
A13: The key to this is their large size and their wide and thick wings.
Q14: How long do they live?
A14: This is not clearly known, but they are believed to live for at least 30 years.
Q15: Where are their ears?
A15: As is the case with most other birds, their ears are a little below and off to the side of their eyes. If you describe the location of their ears in human terms, they are in the rear area of the cheeks. As they are covered with feathers their ears are difficult to spot, but most birds have fairly large ears relative to their body size.
Q16: How do they sleep?
A16: They do not seem to have a fixed place for sleeping. They apparently sleep among dense leaves in lower parts of valleys.
Q17: How do they spend winter?
A17: Their lives in winter are just as they are in summer. Even their diet remains mostly the same, except for the lack of snakes, as snakes hibernate during the winter. Needless to say, mountain hawk eagles do not hibernate.
Q18: What is their body temperature?
A18: This is not clearly understood, but it is believed to be about 40 degrees Celsius.
Q19: How many times in her lifetime does a female mountain hawk eagle lay eggs?
A19: This is not clearly understood either, but it can be surmised that she can lay eggs about 15 times at least.
Q20: How large are they?
A20: A mountain hawk eagle is about 80 centimeters from the tip of its head to the end of its tail feathers. When flying, its wingspan measures about two meters across.
Q21: Do their feathers change colors?
A21: The color of their bodies overall is whitish when they are young, but they darken as the birds grow older.
Q22: About how many minutes do they fly at a time?
A22: About three minutes on the average.
Q23: How can you distinguish a male from a female?
A23: The body color is the same for both the male and the female. However, the female is slightly larger and more stoutly buil than the male.
Q24: Where does the Japanese name of this bird, "kumataka," come from?
A24: "Kuma," or bear, indicates the bird' s size and strength. Therefore, "kumataka" means "a large and strong bird of prey."
