Fact Check: Is This Bird a Harpy Eagle?

Photos are often shared on social networks without attribution.

This makes verification extremely difficult for users. Pages that show the extraordinary, frightening and not everyday are particularly popular on Facebook - where the pictures and videos come from is secondary.

The so-called click bait (in German: “click bait”) is intended to attract users and, in the best case, motivate them to interact - in itself nothing reprehensible, but unfinished reporting leaves users angry, angry, incomprehensible and, above all, with a bunch of questions.

And these are also available for the following pictures that were recently shared on Facebook:

A fact check

It is a real bird. The images are not manipulated, but we have not been able to trace most of the photos back to the actual source.

Only the watermark ("© Leon Moore - journeyguyana.com") of a man named Leon Moore gave us a clue - unfortunately the photo is no longer available on either the website or the Facebook profile .

If you research the other pictures, you will always find descriptions of a type of bird that is actually called a harpy eagle - and looks like it.

Geo.de describes the harpy eagle as a bird of prey weighing up to ten kilograms that is native to Amazonia. They have a crown-like crest of feathers on the back of their heads and their wings can reach a span of up to 2.3 meters.

The term “Amazon” is not clear. According to Planet Wissen, Amazonia is, among other things, referred to as the tropical rainforest, the entire Amazon basin, but also the catchment area. This includes, among other things, Guyana, a country in northern South America, which is also in the name of Leon Moore's website.

WWF description of the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyia) applies very well to the birds shown:

Tuft of feathers on the back of the head

The harpy eagle is one of the largest birds of prey in the world. It grows up to 115 centimeters, has a wingspan of around 250 centimeters and weighs five to ten kilograms. The most outstanding feature of the harpy eagle is its black, two-tailed, crown-like crest of feathers on the back of its head, which it raises when excited. Otherwise, the plumage of the harpy eagle is gray to black on the back, chest area and wing coverts. The belly side is predominantly feathered with white. The underside of the tail, the feathered legs and the undersides of the wings have dark gray transverse banding.

According to Geo.de, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classified the species as “potentially endangered” on its Red List in 2012.

And what about the monster-sized harpy on the tree trunk?

Harpies are among the largest species of birds of prey in the world. But why she looks so monstrous in the one picture shown may be due to the perspective of the photo.

By using forced perspective you can make a photo appear larger than it actually is. Whether something appears larger or smaller depends on the position between the camera and the object.

A man with a harpy can also be seen on this website This sits right next to him - it looks smaller, but still impressive.

Result:

The birds in the pictures are harpie eagles (Harpia harpyia).

Unfortunately, the original sources for the photos have been lost on the World Wide Web. Only the website, which can be found as a watermark on one of the photos, indicates that the original source of one of the photos is Leon Moore or one of the tour participants in Guyana.