Dark chanting-goshawk

Description

The dark chanting goshawk is a medium sized,bulky hawk with an upright stance.The head,breast and upperparts are essentially dark grey,while the underparts,other than the breast,are white,finely barred with black.The wing primaries are black,and the tail has broad black and white bars.The cere and the long legs are orange-red.The female is,on average,larger than the male,weighing up to 840g to the male's maximum weight of 700g.Juveniles tend to have browner plumage reminiscent in colour and pattern to a buzzard Buteo spp but with the broad winged,long tailed silhouette of an accipiter.As its common name suggests the dark chanting goshawk is a vocal bird,although less so than its two congeners.It often calls from a perch or in flight,making an accelerating series of piping notes and fluty whistles,which has been described as a song or chant and there are up to a dozen notes in a series “peeu-peeu-pu-pu-pu”.It also gives a high-pitched “peee-u”.During the breeding season it is more vocal than when non breeding.