Great Black Hawk, Regurgitating?

The first thing I thought was: this bird is sick.

On the way out, we had seen a Great Black Hawk eating something along the bank of a narrow stretch of river. It looked like the tail of a reptile, something thin and elongated. We kept going, looking for other animals.

When we came back, it was still there.

This time, we stopped. The hawk looked distressed. It kept opening its beak, stretching its neck, straining, and repeatedly trying to bring something back up. We watched without really understanding what was happening.

And there was a strange coincidence.

That same week, I had seen two different videos of jaguars doing exactly the same thing: bringing something back up. It made me start thinking about a behavior we don’t usually associate with the way we picture wild animals.

We expect the attack, the flight, the hunt, the movement.

But bodies have unpleasant moments, too.

Eating, digesting, getting rid of what the body can’t use. Regurgitating. Dealing with a physical necessity that has no concern whatsoever for the image it leaves in the eyes of an observer.

The Great Black Hawk was still beautiful.

It was just busy trying to get rid of something.

I never found out what it was.

I took the photograph.

And maybe that’s exactly why I like this image. It doesn’t capture the animal I expected to find. It captures something that happened right in front of me, something I couldn’t explain at the time.

Regurgitating, Great Black Hawk?