The big five are what many people might hope or expect to see when they go on a safari, but smaller animals are living out their own lives with dramatic hunts and experiences, just like the larger beasts.
Pieter Venter filmed this pale chanting goshawk at the end of a successful hunt, when it was tucking into a snake it had captured with its talons on the ground in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
Dinner Ready To Go
The snake appeared to still be alive when the goshawk began its meal as its tail continued to contract and curl around it, but this might have been muscles in the dead snake’s body reacting as the hungry bird tore it apart.
With one clawed foot the goshawk held down its prey, while it used its sharp beak to tear away bite-sized chunks of flesh for it to swallow. it looked like the bird was starting with the head and working its way down the rest of the body.
At the rate the bird was getting through it, the snake would last the goshawk quite a while. Clearly this was a bird that wanted to take the time to savor its meal to the fullest.
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Hunting Habits
Birds like these tend to hunt alone, which meant this goshawk had the snake all to itself, but unfortunately this didn’t mean that it had all the time in the world to eat it.
There are a variety of predators that would hunt, eat or potentially steal a small snake like this, which meant this goshawk would have to be vigilant if it was to keep it. Predators of all size would scavenge a meal from another if they saw the opportunity.
Goshawks themselves are opportunistic when it comes to their hunting behaviors, which means that if this bird saw something else with a tasty meal then it likely wouldn’t hesitate to steal it if it thought there was an opening.
Alive But Not Fighting Back
If the snake was being eaten alive, it wasn’t putting up much of a fight against its fate. The goshawk appeared to have targetted its head from the beginning, meaning the snake likely didn’t have any weapons left with which to defend itself.
Snakes of most kinds rely on lightning fast attacks with their fangs to ward off potential predators, and bring down their own prey. One of their other main weapons is their long body itself, in the case of constricting snakes.
This one looked like it might have made a very weak attempt at coiling itself around the goshawk’s legs, but it wasn’t clear if this was an attempt at fighting back, or if the snake was coiling in pain or distress at being eaten.
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Score One For The Birds
This goshawk was not only able to avoid any weak constricting attempts by simply standing on the coils of the snake, it had also managed to get the drop on its prey and take it out before it could use its incredible reflexes to respond.
The end result was, unfortunately, eventual death for the snake which seemed unable to fight back, and a good tasty meal for the goshawk that was keeping a wary eye out in case anything tried to steal it.
