Zone-tailed Hawk

Sightings
We only had 2 sightings of Zone-tailed Hawk in Trinidad although it is a common resident. In this case, the bird was drifting over lowland forest. The photo shows the main characteristic features of the species particularly the broad white tail band and thin white terminal band, yellow bill and feet, black underwing-coverts and grey flight feathers barred black, with a thick black trailing edge.

Species
Zone-tailed Hawk Buteo albonotatus is a medium-sized hawk of warm, dry parts of the Americas. It is somewhat similar in plumage and flight style to Turkey Vulture. It has a range of habitats including rocky areas as well as woodland. Indeed the last two that I saw were crossing the Grand Canyon and in grassy habitat in lowland Guatemala.

Status and distribution
It is a species of least concern in a large breeding range of some 25 million square kilometres. Zone-tailed hawks range from parts of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas almost throughout inland Mexico and the central portions of Central America down into eastern Colombia, Ecuador and, more sporadically, into Peru, southern Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and northern Argentina. It is common and widespread resident on Trinidad, but absent on Tobago.

References
Asa Wright Centre; BirdLife; Wikipedia; World Bird Names; Kenefick, M., Restall, R., and Hayes, F. (2015) Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 80

Photograph
I have my camera set at point focusing which is good for birds that are close but not optimal for birds in flight so it was lucky that I managed to get this bird reasonably well in focus. Photographed at 1/250th of a second, f5.6 and ISO 100.