We saw these dark chanting goshawks near Kidepo Valley NP in northeastern Uganda. Because it looked much like goshawks I'd seen earlier in Kenya (eastern chanting goshawk) and Namibia (pale chanting goshawk), I assumed they were the same species (even though these prior birds were each a different species - but I did not remember that as it was years ago) and did not take the photos of them as seriously as I would have otherwise. I'm learning with time and experience that birds I think are the same as something I've already seen are different, because of subtle differences or faulty memory (and geographical separation should also be a big clue).
We were driving outside Kidepo Valley NP to the visit of a native village where the villagers still live in mud and stick huts. Our guide, William, spotted this goshawk off the road some distance.
Further down the road we encountered another large hawk which was brown. I thought I was told by William and/or Zachary, our ranger, that it was a female. But I may have misheard or misremembered as it appears to be a juvenile. It was on the road, but then took flight before I could get a photo, and landed in some trees.
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Juveniles have a browner plumage reminiscent in color and pattern to a buzzard. See the photo of the juvenile below from Wikipedia. |
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Dark chanting goshawk illustration from Birds of the World. |
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Photo of juvenile dark chanting goshawk from Wikipedia. |
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Range from Birds of the World. |
Per Wikipedia, "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 [which I saw in Etosha NP in Namibia] and east Africa where the eastern chanting goshawk seems to replace it [which I saw in Buffalo Spring NR in Kenya]." There are five subspecies and this appears to be the nominate subspecies metabates which is found from Senegambia east to Eritrea and Ethiopia, south to northeastern DRC and northern Tanzania.
Love the photo from below with the tail feathers spread out.
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