Black-faced hawk
species of bird
The black-faced hawk (Leucopternis melanops) is a species of bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. This low-density species has traditionally been believed to be restricted to Amazon Basin north of the Amazon River, but there are several records south of this river, in, for example, the Brazilian states of Pará and Acre, and southeastern Peru. It is closely related to the white-browed hawk and individuals showing a level of intermediacy between the two species are known, suggesting that they rarely hybridize
Description
The black-faced hawk is a medium-sized hawk with black and white plumage. It has a white underbelly, a large white head streaked with some black and a characteristic black "mask". Below the black mask, it has a dark orange cere and a black tipped bill. The back of the hawk is dark all the way down to the tail with some mottling. However, a single white band sticks out near the base of the tail.
Juvenile plumage resembles adult plumage except that juveniles have thinner streaks of black on the head, two white bands instead of a single one in the tail, and brown at the tips of the feathers.
The black-faced hawk adult looks very similar to the juvenile white-browed hawk. Both hawks have a white head streaked with black, a black face mask and white mottling on the back.
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This entry incorporates text from “Black-faced hawk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.