Mangrove Black Hawk
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| Buteogallus subtilis (Thayer & Bangs, 1905) |
The Mangrove Black Hawk (Buteogallus subtilis) is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. It is sometimes considered to be a subspecies of the Common Black Hawk (Buteogallus anthracinus).
The Mangrove Black Hawk is a resident breeding bird in the tropical New World on the Pacific coast and on islands from southern Mexico south through Central America.
This is a mainly coastal bird of Pacific mangrove swamps, estuaries and adjacent dry open woodland, which builds a large stick nest in a mangrove tree, and usually lays one dark-blotched whitish egg.
The adult Mangrove Black Hawk is 43-53cm long and weighs around 930g. It has very broad wings, and is mainly black with an extensive brownish cast to the upper-wings. 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.
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.
This species differs from the Common Black Hawk mainly by its shorter wings and browner upperparts.
The Mangrove Black Hawk feeds mainly on crabs, but will also take small vertebrates and eggs. This species is often seen soaring, with occasional lazy flaps, and has a talon-touching aerial courtship display. The call of the Mangrove Black Hawk is a distinctive piping spink-speenk-speenk-spink-spink-spink.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Buteogallus subtilis. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Stiles and Skutch, A guide to the birds of Costa Rica ISBN 0-8014-9600-4
