is sufficient to kill the prey. Prey, including birds, are generally killed on the ground, with infrequent reports of prey taken from trees. Some larger (and presumably slower-flying) avian prey may be taken while in flight; victims of successful hunts have consisted of water birds such as herons, storks and geese. If kills are too large and heavy to carry in flight, both members of a pair may return to the kill over several days, probably roosting nearby. If nesting, the pair tends to dismember pieces of large kills such as limbs to bring to the nest. Much of the large prey, perhaps most, that is left on the ground is lost to scavengers. The diet of the martial eagle varies greatly with prey availability and can be dictated largely by opportunity. Remarkably, mammals, birds and reptiles can in turn dominate the prey selection of martial eagles in a given area, with no one prey type globally dominating their prey spectrum. In some areas, both mammals and birds can each comprise more than 80% of the prey selection. Over 170 prey species have been reported for the martial eagle which is a much higher number than the full prey spectrum of other larger African booted eagles, and even this may neglect some of the prey they take in the little studied populations from west and central Africa and the northern part of east Africa. Prey may vary considerably in size but for the most part, prey weighing less than are ignored by hunting martial eagles, with only about 15% of the known prey species averaging less than this. A majority of studies report the average size of prey for martial eagles being between . Average weight of prey taken has been reported at as low as . A food study largely based in data from the Great Rift Valley, Kenya, as well as from Maasai Mara, did reinforce a mean prey mass of just over for the species. However, the mean prey body mass is considerably higher in other known dietary studies. In by far the largest dietary study thus far conducted for the martial eagle species (in the Cape Province, South Africa) the estimated mean prey body mass was approximately . In Tsavo East National Park of Kenya, the mean estimated body mass of prey was quite similar at approximately . Average prey weights in a study of the