Another of my new eagles... The Martial Eagle is found in most of sub-Saharan Africa, wherever food is abundant and the environment favorable. Its preferred habitat is open woods and woodland edges, wooded savannah and thornbush habitats. It is not found in dense tropical forests such as the Guinean and Congolian forests, but needs trees to nest in and to use for obstruction while hunting. In southern Africa, they have adapted to more open habitats, such as semi-desert and open savanna with scattered trees and wooded hillocks. Martial eagles have been noted as remarkable for their extremely keen eyesight (3.0–3.6 times human acuity). Due to this power, they can spot potential prey from a very great distance. Among bird prey, martial eagles often choose to predate medium-sized ground-dwelling species such as francolins, guineafowl or bustards. Other birds predated have included young ostriches, storks, herons, other waterfowl, hornbills and quelea flocks. Among regular mammal prey are hares, hyraxes, mongooses, squirrels, spring hares, rats, genets, foxes, baboons, other monkeys, young warthogs, dikdiks, young impala, and various other young or small antelope. There are 170,000 adult individuals with a decreasing population trend. The species suffers from direct persecution (shooting and trapping) by farmers, indirect poisoning (these two threats by far the most important causes of losses), drowning in sheer-walled reservoirs, electrocution on power lines, and habitat alteration and degradation. ---- Rendered in Poser 2014 without any post work. Models included are Trees (DinoRaul), Flink's Skydome (Flink) and Songbird ReMix Birds of Prey 4: Eagles of the World (Ken Gilliland)