Matopos is an area of granite boulders and dense woodland forest in the south western part of Zimbabwe. It is famous for its wildlife, and some of the wildlife here, are to a very large extent, dependant on a little animal called a Rock Hyrax or "Dassie".
The Rock Hyrax is a small animal, it looks almost like a big rat, or a mini version of a south American Capybara, it lives in rocky areas, and spends almost all its time hidden between the rocks from ground and aerial predators.

Some of the predators include the leopard. It has been proven that Matopos contains the highest density of leopards anywhere in the world, but finding one is extremely difficult in the dense woodland. Here, up to 90 percent of the leopard's diet consists of Hyraxes. Matopos also supports a large snake population, the African Rock Python's spoor is often seen on the gravel road when driving through the park, and these pythons are also largely dependent on the Hyrax population.

But this story is to tell you about the aerial predators of Matopos. It has one of the biggest populations of the Verreaux's Eagle, previously known as the Black Eagle. They feed exclusively on Hyraxes and nothing else.

   
The Verreaux's Eagle is a large eagle that can be identified by its black wings with little white stripes, often seen in pairs.
This day at Matopos we were lucky enough to see two of these birds sitting in a tree, one was feeding on something and we quickly identified it as a young Hyrax.
Obviously the young have a higher chance of being caught by predators that can be attributed to the lack of experience and fending for itself.

As we were watching these birds, the one with the kill decided to fly away, taking the bounty with him and the mate soon followed, and before long they were out of sight.
The Verreaux's Eagle likes to nest on high peaks, cliffs and so on, which makes the Matopos area ideal for living, but, the Matopos is only so big, there are so many Veroux eagles there and all of them are territorial. When the young hatches and after a few months leaves the nest to find its own territory, they often find it very difficult to exit the Matopos because the Matopos is the only place with high nesting sites for many kilometres, and they end up having to fight for their territory with other birds.

This means the population of eagles will stay more or less the same through the years, at the moment there is around 50 known breeding pairs in the area which makes it an ideal place to visit if someone wants to see these birds in their natural habitat.
Though, for any avid birder, there are many more species of birds to be viewed in this magnificent area.