Levant Sparrowhawk | Tachyspiza brevipes

Voice

Silent on migration. Around the nest a sharp, clipped kee-wik and a fast ki-ki-ki-ki, thinner and higher than in Eurasian Sparrowhawk.

Identification

32–38 cm, wingspan 65–75 cm. A slim sparrowhawk with a pointed hand with four fingers and a straight trailing edge to the wing. The adult male is slate-grey above, with a grey cap extending over the cheek, and white below with such fine rufous barring that the underparts look white at a distance; the white underwing has sharply black tips. The eye is dark, blackish red. The female is larger and browner grey above, more heavily barred below, with a dark mesial stripe on the white throat. The juvenile is brown above and has rows of round or teardrop-shaped dark spots on the underparts and a clear throat stripe. The tail is grey with narrow, inconspicuous bars.

Confusion species

Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) has shorter, rounder wings with five or six fingers, a white supercilium, a clearly barred tail and a yellow to orange-red eye; the male has orange cheeks. Shikra (Tachyspiza badia) is smaller and paler, with shorter wings and less black on the wingtip. At long range a migrating flock may resemble Eurasian Hobbies (Falco subbuteo), but those have longer, sickle-shaped wings and a black moustache. Single birds in a mixed stream often cannot be identified with certainty.

Habitat

On passage over hills, valleys and desert edges; rests in copses, orchards, olive groves, date palms and riverine woodland, often in groups in the same trees. Elsewhere breeds in deciduous woodland, riverine forest and woodland edges in warm, open country. Hunts small birds, lizards and large insects.

Range and movements

In the region almost only a passage migrant. In spring, mainly from late April to mid-May, it passes in large flocks through Egypt (the Eastern Desert, Suez and Sinai), via Eilat and the Arava and Jordan valleys through Israel and Jordan, and on through Lebanon, Syria and western Iraq. In autumn, mainly in the second half of September, the route lies further west, with large numbers over central Israel. Smaller numbers pass through western Saudi Arabia. Possibly a rare breeder in northern Syria and northern Iraq, but little is known about this. The wintering grounds are poorly known; presumably mainly in northeast Africa south of the Sahara, with small numbers in Egypt and southwest Arabia. Beyond the region it breeds from the Balkans and Greece through Turkey and Crimea to southern Russia, the Caucasus and northern Iran.

• Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

How and when to look

Eilat in spring is the best place in the world: on a good day in late April flocks of tens to hundreds of birds pass low over the mountains west of the town. In autumn the count sites in central Israel give the best chance. Look for groups of small raptors migrating fast and flat, with short glides, in a tight formation.

Conservation status

Not threatened, but with a fairly small world population that is probably underestimated because of the difficult identification. Since almost all birds use a few narrow flyways, the species is vulnerable to hunting on migration and to wind farms along the migration routes.

Scientific name

Tachyspiza brevipes | (Severtsov, 1850)

Severtsov described the species in 1850 as Astur brevipes; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Tachyspiza was introduced in 1844 by Kaup. Tachyspiza is Greek, from takhus 'fast' and spizias 'hawk'. brevipes is Latin, from brevis 'short' and pes, pedis 'foot'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Voronezh, Russia.