Family: Accipitridae

Buteogallus urubitinga;
Great Black Hawk;
Gavião-preto.

Falco urubitinga GMELIN, 1788

In 2008, a pair of these birds was repeatedly seen and heard near the hill tops of the Reserve. I believe the pair is now resident here.

The subspecies is the nominal race B. urubitinga urubitinga. Range: from Panama to Argentina (Blake 1977).


Nature reserve for sale
Great Black Hawk (Buteogallus urubitinga)
07/10/2007; Reserva Ecológica Mãe-da-Lua, Itapajé, Ceará, Brazil. 200 mm f2.8 lens.

Figure 1. This species is not a common sight in Ceará. The photo, though blurred and underexposed, shows the characteristic tail pattern of B. urubitinga urubitinga: the proximal half of the rectrices is white, and the distal half is black, with a slim white tip. See Hilty and Brown 1986, plate IV, and Blake 1977.

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