"Eagle on a kill"

The golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) is the most powerful raptor in Europe. A high-altitude hunter, it stoops on its prey at speeds exceeding 150 km/h, the talons exerting sufficient pressure to kill on impact.

The eagle has landed on its kill — a hare — and spreads its wings above it in the gesture of 'mantling', that instinctive movement that screens the prey from potential thieves. This is a precise and rarely depicted behaviour, that speaks of intelligence as much as of power. The diagonal composition — wing deployed from the upper right corner down to the prey at lower left — gives the full wingspan without losing the tension of the moment.