Dark Chanting-Goshawk

The dark chanting goshawk is a medium-sized, bulky hawk with an upright stance. The head, breast and upperparts are essentially dark grey, while the underparts, other than the breast, are white, finely barred with black. The wing primaries are black, and the tail has broad black and white bars. The cere and the long legs are orange-red. The female is, on average, larger than the male, weighing up to 840g to the male's maximum weight of 700g. Juveniles tend to have browner plumage reminiscent in colour and pattern to a buzzard Buteo spp but with the broad winged, long tailed silhouette of an accipiter.

Voice. As its common name suggests, the dark chanting goshawk is a vocal bird, although less so than its two congeners. It often calls from a perch or in flight, making an accelerating series of piping notes and fluty whistles, which has been described as a song or chant and there are up to a dozen notes in a series peeu-peeu-pu-pu-pu. It also gives a high-pitched peee-u. During the breeding season it is more vocal than when non breeding.

The dark chanting goshawk breeds in sub-Saharan Africa, but avoids the rainforests of the Congo Basin and the far south, where it is replaced by the pale chanting goshawk and east Africa where the eastern chanting goshawk seems to replace it. There are five currently recognised subspecies,

Melierax metabates metabates: Senegal and the Gambia east to Ethiopia, south to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Tanzania. Melierax metabates neumanni: Mali east to northern Sudan. Melierax metabates theresae: south west Morocco. Melierax metabates ignoscens: South western Arabia, i.e. south western Saudi Arabia and western Yemen. Melierax metabates mechowi: south eastern Gabon to Angola, south Tanzania south to northern Namibia and north eastern South Africa. Although the status of M. neumanni is debatable as it is poorly differentiated.