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Savanna Hawk
Heterospizias meridionalis | Latham, 1790

PHOTO: Property of Native / Embrapa

Characterization: Large species measuring about 55cm in length. Its predominant color is rufous, with its lower body red with black stripes. This bird's long, broad wings are also strongly reddish with black tips, and it has a stripe above its eyes and a yellowish-white lower part, the latter ridged. When young, it is dark brown, and only its wings and shorts are rufous

Distribution: From Panama to Argentina and throughout Brazil.

Habitat: Field, marsh and mangrove edges, and savanna.

Habits: A diurnal species, it only hunts for a few hours a day. It lands erect on fences or earth mounds.

Diet: Carnivorous, feeding on amphibians, large insects, crabs, lizards, snakes, etc. When there is slash and burn, they usually hunt a few meters from the flames walking slowly through the soil.

Breeding: This bird usually lays a single egg, rarely 2, in a nest built close to the ground, on low trees or palm trees.

In the UFRA area: This species of hawk was seen only 4 times, a low frequency of occurrence. Its distribution in the studied areas was medium, and it was found in native forests, in drainage ditches, in the forests in spontaneous regeneration, and in fields in spontaneous regeneration.