White-throated Hawk

The white-throated hawk is 38 to 48 cm (15 to 19 in) long with an 84 to 102 cm (33 to 40 in) wingspan. Females are up to 20% larger than males and both sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a brownish black face and upperparts. Their tail has a dark brown upper surface and a grayish lower surface with up to 10 narrow dark bands. Their chin, throat, and underparts are white with brown streaking on the breast and belly and rufous barring on the thighs. Their eye is brown and their cere, legs, and feet yellow. Juveniles are similar to adults but with heavy blackish streaking on the breast and flanks, streaked cheeks, and buff thighs with brown bars.

The white-throated hawk is found in the Andes from northwestern Venezuela south through Colombia and Ecuador into Peru and Bolivia and in central Chile and western Argentina. It inhabits humid montane forest, elfin forest, cloudforest and adjacent open landscapes such as puna grassland. In the northern part of its range it is found at elevations between 1,700 and 3,500 m (5,600 and 11,500 ft), in Patagonia between 1,000 and 2,000 m (3,300 and 6,600 ft), and in Chile from near sea level to 1,200 m (3,900 ft).

The white-throated hawk's hunting strategy has not been documented. Its diet has not been extensively studied but is known to include insects, rodents, and birds, the last as large as Magellanic woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus).