Saturday, December 31, 2011

White-breasted Hawk

adult male White-breasted Hawk, Honduras, December 2011
White-breasted Hawk is a little known raptor from the Central American pine-oak forest. Officially (AOU) still a subspecies of the Sharp-shinned Hawk, most authors agree that this form should really be its own species. Currently, ten subspecies of Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus) are recognized, which can be subdivided in three main groups: the striatus (Sharp-shinned) group which contains four subspecies on the North American mainland and three island ssp; the Central American chionogaster (White-breasted) group with just one subspecies; and the erythronemius (Rufous-thighed) group with two South American subspecies (Bildstein & Meyer 2000). Future DNA work is likely to result in a split into at least three species: Sharp-shinned Hawk; White-breasted Hawk; and Rufous-thighed Hawk.

tail of adult male White-breasted Hawk, Honduras, December 2011
We caught this adult male while banding in Monte Uyuca (Honduras) last week. We have been banding there every month for two years now, and regularly see White-breasted Hawks around the net lanes. This was the first time we caught it here. Note (browner) retained outer rectrices from a previous molt generation.

Upperside wing ad male White-breasted Hawk, Honduras, December 2011
Upperside wing shot. Note the difference in (browner) retained primary coverts compared to (slaty) fresher secondary coverts.


adult male White-breasted Hawk, Honduras, December 2011
After we released the bird, it perched in a nearby tree. It may be worth noting that the tibial feathers appear white, like the rest of the underparts. Bildstein & Meyer (2000) describe light ochraceous-buff tibial feathering for the adult White-breasted Hawk...

juvenile male Sharp-shinned Hawk, Honduras, December 2011
Another first for the site was this juvenile male Sharp-shinned Hawk. We caught it two days later during the same pulse.

juvenile male Sharp-shinned Hawk, Honduras, December 2011
White-breasted Hawk is a resident species here in Honduras; Sharp-shinned Hawk is a winter visitor to the region.

References
Bildstein, Keith L. and Ken Meyer. 2000. Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/482

3 comments:

Tom Jenner said...

Hi John
I have just come across your blog and I will immediately be subscribing to it. I enjoyed your blog on the White-breasted Hawk, as it is a species I studied for 8 years in Celaque N.P. in Honduras and near Perquin in El Salvador. I published a paper on the life history of this species in Ornthologia Neotropical in 2010. I look forward to hearing more about what you find, especially as your more recent posts have included many species that I never caught up with in all my visits to Honduras.

Tom Jenner

ktown60 said...

I am not a birder to start out...but about 4 years ago a pair of these white-breasted hawks killed a rabbit on the deck of my house... I live in a residential neighborhood in erie pennsylvania. I heard alot of noise on my deck from my kitchen window and went to see what it was and saw 2 big birds flapping like crazy on my deck..i opened the door and they flew in a willow tree in another close yard and i saw the rabbit laying on the deck.. i got my binoculars out and watched them for about 10 min. looking back at my house. i could see them perfectly. I finally went to bed cause i worked 3rd shift .. when i woke and looked the only thing left on the deck was the rabbits tail and a couple of feathers....just thought u might be interested to know..I am 100 % positive these were the birds i saw

ktown60 said...

I am not a birder to start out...but about 4 years ago a pair of these white-breasted hawks killed a rabbit on the deck of my house... I live in a residential neighborhood in erie pennsylvania. I heard alot of noise on my deck from my kitchen window and went to see what it was and saw 2 big birds flapping like crazy on my deck..i opened the door and they flew in a willow tree in another close yard and i saw the rabbit laying on the deck.. i got my binoculars out and watched them for about 10 min. looking back at my house. i could see them perfectly. I finally went to bed cause i worked 3rd shift .. when i woke and looked the only thing left on the deck was the rabbits tail and a couple of feathers....just thought u might be interested to know..I am 100 % positive these were the birds i saw