Common Black Hawk
Buteogallus anthracinus
An aptly-named entirely black hawk with broad wings and short tail with a distinct white band. Flight feathers are slightly paler and it has long yellow legs and yellow on the base of the bill. Immature birds are streaky brown with dark moustache and pale eyebrow. Typically found in woodlands near water where it hunts; shows an affinity for cottonwood trees at the northern end of its range.
Identification
The adult common black-hawk is 43–53 cm (17–21 in) long and weighs 930 g (33 oz) on average. It has very broad wings, and is mainly black or dark gray. The short tail is black with a single broad white band and a white tip. The bill is black and the legs and cere are yellow. The adults resemble zone-tailed hawks, but have fewer white bars on their tail and are larger in size.<p>Sexes are similar, but immature birds are dark brown above with spotting and streaks. Their underparts are buff to whitish with dark blotches, and the tail has a number of black and white bars.<p>It formerly included the Cuban black-hawk (Buteogallus gundlachii) as a subspecies. The mangrove black hawk, traditionally considered a distinct species, is now generally considered a subspecies, B. a. subtilis, of the common black-hawk.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Buteogallus anthracinus
- Authority
- (Deppe, 1830)
- Order
- Accipitriformes
- Family
- Accipitridae
- Genus
- Buteogallus
Range and habitat
The common black-hawk is a breeding bird in the warmer parts of the Americas, from the Southwestern United States through Central America to Venezuela, Peru, Trinidad, and the Lesser Antilles. It is a mainly coastal, resident bird of mangrove swamps, estuaries and adjacent dry open woodland, though there are inland populations, including a migratory population in north-western Mexico and Arizona.
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
The bird builds a platform nest of sticks fifteen to one hundred feet above the ground in a tree, often a mangrove. Nests are often reused and tend to grow bigger. It lays one to three eggs (usually one), which are whitish with brown markings.<p>It has hybridized naturally with the red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) in Sonoma County, California, USA. This natural hybridization between different genera of hawks is rare.<p>It feeds mainly on crabs (especially land crabs) and crayfish, but will also take small vertebrates (such as fish, frogs, turtle hatchlings, lizards, snakes and small, young or injured birds and mammals), carrion (in form of dead fish) and eggs. The common black hawk also supplements its diet with a variety of insects, including grasshoppers, caterpillars and wasp larvae. This species is often seen soaring, with occasional lazy flaps, and has a talon-touching aerial courtship display. The call is a distinctive piping spink-speenk-speenk-spink-spink-spink.
Conservation
The common black hawk is protected in the far north of its range (in the USA) under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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