Zone-tailed Hawk, Buteo albonotatus

Zone-tailed Hawk, Buteo albonotatus. Photograph taken within a residential community in Alamos, Sonora, November 2019. Bird is carrying what is believed to be a Mexican Parrotlet, Forpus cyanopygius. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F Smith, Alamos, Sonora.

Zone-tailed Hawk, Buteo albonotatus. Photograph taken in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, April 2024. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Tom Bartol, Carlsbad, California.

The Zone-tailed Hawk, Buteo albonotatus, is a member of the Accipitridae Family of Eagles, Hawks and Kites, which has two hundred fifty members placed in sixty-nine genera and one of twenty-nine know species of the Buteo Genus. They are known in Mexico as busardo aura.

The Zone-tailed Hawk is mid-sized and slight in stature. The sexes are similar in appearance with the females being slightly larger and heavier than the males with the females having three tail bands versus two in the males. They have long, narrow wings and tails that are dark in color being a uniform slaty black with a faint brown cast except for the tail which has two or three light band and two-toned underwings with black lining and pale flight feathers, with dusky banding and broad dark margins. Their legs and cere are bright yellow.

The Zone-tailed Hawk is found in a variety of habitats including riparian woodland and humid forests to semi-arid open country and montane highlands at elevations between 500 m (1,650 feet) and 3,000 m (10,000 feet). They are uncommon and only found in a limited number of locations. They consume a wide variety birds, mammals and lizards. They are known for their spectacular courtship displays which include aerial loops, dives and rolls from heights up to 500 m (1,650 feet) and for vigorously defending their nesting territories. They are easily and often confused with the Common Black Hawk, Buteogallus anthracinus. The Zone-tailed Hawk are poorly studied and very little about their biology and behavioral patterns has been documented.

In Mexico the Zone-tailed Hawk has a wide distribution and found throughout the country. The northern populations migrate to warm locations for the winter; the southern populations are non-migratory being year-round residents.

From a conservation perspective they are currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are prone to hunting by humans and their habitats are threatened by human development and their nests are subject to human disturbance.