All species › Birds of prey › Kites, Old World vultures, eagles and hawks › Grey-lined Hawk
Grey-lined Hawk | Buteo nitidus
Grijsgestreepte buizerd | Aguililla gris | Gavião-pedrês
The Grey-lined Hawk is a medium-sized, pale grey buteo of forest edges and semi-open woodland in the lowlands. Adults are finely barred grey, including on the back, and have a black tail with white bands. Until 2012 it was treated together with the Grey Hawk Buteo plagiatus of Central America as a single species.
Voice
A clear, plaintive, descending wheeeeur, and in the breeding season a series of whistled notes, hoo-hoo-hoo.
Recording: Fabrício Grigolin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
38–43 cm. Fairly short- and broad-winged, with a medium-length tail. The adult is pale grey above with fine dark cross-lines, and white below with fine grey barring. The rump is white. The tail is black with two white bands and a narrow white tip. Cere and legs are yellow. In flight the underwings are white, finely barred, with dark tips. Juveniles are dark brown above and whitish to buff below with dark drop-shaped spots, and have a pale head with a dark eyestripe and moustachial stripe and a finely barred brown tail.
Confusion species
Roadside Hawk Rupornis magnirostris is smaller, with a plain brownish-grey breast, rufous primaries in flight and a tail with more, narrower bands. Broad-winged Hawk Buteo platypterus has a rufous-barred breast and a dark trailing edge to the underwing. Juveniles resemble juvenile Broad-winged and Short-tailed Hawks Buteo brachyurus; then look for the white rump and the strongly marked head. Semiplumbeous Hawk Leucopternis semiplumbeus is plain slate grey above and unbarred white below.
Habitat
Forest edges, open woodland, gallery forest, savanna with groves, secondary forest and plantations, often along rivers; mainly in the lowlands up to about 1200 m, locally higher in dry valleys. It hunts from a perch, mainly taking lizards, and also small mammals, birds and large insects. The nest is a stick nest in a tall tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the lowlands throughout, also in the inter-Andean valleys. In Ecuador in the western and eastern lowlands. In Peru in the eastern lowlands and in the north-west (Tumbes). In Bolivia in the lowlands of the north and east. Outside the guide area from Costa Rica through Panama and Venezuela to the Guianas, Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along forest edges, rivers and savanna margins, look for a pale grey hawk on a bare branch above the forest edge; in the breeding season it calls often and circles over the forest.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Widespread and fairly common; locally it benefits from the opening up of forest.
Scientific name
Buteo nitidus | (Latham, 1790)
Latham described the species in 1790 as Falco nitidus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Buteo was introduced in 1799 by De Lacépède. The genus name is Latin buteo, the Roman name for the Common Buzzard. The species name is Latin nitidus, 'shining' or 'bright'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.