>Melierax poliopterus (Eastern Chanting Goshawk)

Eastern Chanting Goshawk

Eastern Chanting Goshawk
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Falconiformes (or Accipitriformes, q.v.)
Family:	Accipitridae
Genus:	Melierax
Species:	M. poliopterus
Binomial name
Melierax poliopterus (Cabanis, 1868)

The Eastern (Pale) Chanting Goshawk or Somali Chanting Goshawk (Melierax poliopterus) is a bird of prey of East Africa.

Taxonomy

This species is intermediate between the smaller Dark Chanting Goshawk (widespread to the west and south) and the Pale Chanting Goshawk (southern Africa) in color, size, and leg length, but not in range. It has often been considered a subspecies of the latter, but because of this disparity between geography and characters, it is now considered a separate species, as agreed by many authorities.

Description

This species averages 49 to 55 cm long, with a wingspan of 96 to 110 cm and a tail length of 20 to 25 cm. Males average 85% of the size of females. Like the other chanting goshawks, it resembles an accipiter but the tail is shorter and graduated (the feathers increase in length from the edges to the center), and the wings are broader.

Adults have grey head, neck, breast, and upperparts, except for the white or lightly barred upppertail coverts. The belly has narrow grey and white bars and the undertail coverts are white. The belly and wing linings are white, the secondaries are light grey, and the primaries are dark, giving an impression from below of a white bird with grey head and dark wingtips. The tail is blackish above and white below with grey bars. The cere is yellow, and the legs are orange-red. Juveniles are dull brown above with a pale stripe over the eye. They have white underparts with brown streaks on the throat and breast, brown bars on the belly coverts, and faint or no barring on the undertail coverts. The tail is brown with widely spaced darker brown bars. The rump is white, partially barred or unmarked. They are indistinguishable from some juvenile Dark Chanting Goshawks except for the less barred undertail coverts and rump. Also, the legs are slightly longer at all ages than the Dark Chanting Goshawk's.

Distribution and habitat

It occurs in semidesert, dry bush, and wooded grassland below 2000 m in southern Ethiopia, Djibouti, western Somalia, eastern Kenya, northeastern Tanzania, and adjacent Uganda.

Behavior

The Eastern Chanting Goshawk is usually seen alone. It often perches on the tops of trees and utility poles. Its wingbeats are shallow and "straight-arm". It holds its wings flat, or sometimes in a V, when it glides.

Its calls are "a melodious piping whee-pee-pee-pee, and a long high-pitched kleee-yeu", slightly lower-pitched than those of the Dark Chanting Goshawk,or "peeu-peeu-peeu-pee-pee-pee-pee..." in the nesting season, the source of its name

>Melierax canorus (Pale Chanting Goshawk)

Pale Chanting Goshawk

Pale Chanting Goshawk
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Falconiformes (or Accipitriformes, q.v.)
Family:	Accipitridae
Genus:	Melierax
Species:	M. canorus
Binomial name
Melierax canorus (Thunberg, 1799)

The (Southern) Pale Chanting Goshawk (Melierax canorus) is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. This hawk breeds in southern Africa. It is a resident species of dry, open semi-desert with 75 cm or less annual rainfall. It is commonly seen perched on roadside telephone poles.

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

This species is 56–65 cm long. The adult has grey upperparts with a white rump. The central tail feathers are black tipped with white, and the outer feathers are barred grey and white. The head and upper breast are pale grey; the rest of the underparts are finely barred in dark grey and white. Its eyes are red, the bill is mostly red, and it has long red legs. It is paler than the grey-rumpedDark Chanting Goshawk, Melierax metabates.

In flight, the adult has black primary flight feathers, very pale grey (white from a distance) secondaries, and grey forewings. The wingspan is about 105 cm.

Immatures have brown upperparts, with a white rump and black bars on the tail. From below, the flight feathers and tail are white with black barring, the throat is dark-streaked white, and the rest of the underparts are rufous.

The Pale Chanting Goshawk eats a variety of vertebrate prey, mainly lizards, but also small mammals and birds, and large insects. It often walks on the ground.

In Namibia

This is generally a rather quiet bird, but during the breeding season the male makes a series of tuneful whistling calls kleeuu, kleeuu-ku-ku-ku from a tree-top perch.

Normally a female mates with a single male, but in "broken veld" vegetation, a female and two males may form a polyandrous trio.

The relatively small stick nest is built in an acacia at a height of 3 to 10 m. The female lays and incubates one or two pale bluish or greenish white, unmarked eggs. Only one chick is normally reared from a nest of two. The breeding cycle begins in midwinter and takes over 115 days. The young after leaving the nest may be found near it for some months and in the following year may even display in the same area. Some pairs and especially trios raise a second brood, starting about 24 days after the first brood fledges.

>Melierax metabates (Dark Chanting Goshawk)

Dark Chanting Goshawk

Dark Chanting Goshawk
Adult at Kapama Game Reserve, South Africa
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Falconiformes (or Accipitriformes, q.v.)
Family:	Accipitridae
Genus:	Melierax
Species:	M. metabates
Binomial name
Melierax metabates Heuglin, 1861

The Dark Chanting Goshawk (Melierax metabates) is a bird of prey in the familyAccipitridae. The Accipitridae also include many other diurnal raptors such as kites,eagles and harriers.

This hawk breeds in sub-Saharan Africa, but avoids the rain forests of the Congo basin. There is a small and declining isolated population in Morocco, and it also occurs in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

It is a resident species of tropical and subtropical savannah. It builds a stick nest in a tree and lays one or two eggs. It eats a variety of vertebrate prey and large insects.

Dark Chanting Goshawk is a large, long-tailed, broad-winged hawk, with a 105 cm wingspan. It is slate-grey above and white with fine barring below. The tail is black and white. In flight, the wings are grey with black tips. The flight is stiff and mechanical.

This species derives its name from the breeding season song, which consists of chanted flutes and whistles.

>>>Subfamily Melieraxinae >Melierax

Melierax

Melierax
Melierax canorus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Falconiformes (or Accipitriformes, q.v.)
Family:	Accipitridae
Genus:	Melierax G.R. Gray, 1840

Melierax is a genus of bird of prey in the Accipitridae family. It contains the following species:

• Dark Chanting Goshawk (Melierax metabates)
• Pale Chanting Goshawk (Melierax canorus)
• Eastern Chanting Goshawk (Melierax poliopterus)