Rufous-tailed Hawk, Buteo ventralis, an uncommon Bird of Prey from Patagonia

This and last week we did a couple of brief excursions along the road that follows the shore of the Magellan Straits into an area of patchy old growth Nothofagus (Southern Beech) forest south of Punta Arenas, looking for one of the rarest of South American birds of prey, the secretive Rufous-tailed Hawk, Buteo ventralis.

A resident of woodlands from Maule in Central Chile to Tierra del Fuego in Chilean Patagonia with a few rare sightings in adjacent forest patches in Argentina, this raptor inhabits old-growth native forest patches, composed primarily by Nothofagus, Araucaria and Fitzroya, the edge of such woods and adjacent coastal areas, from sea level up to 1,200m. It usually soars high, describing wide circles while looking for prey by the edge of forest and in semi-open scrub environment.

Our search was rewarded after we got a beautiful adult bird that turned out to be quite shy in a patch of mainly Nothofagus betuloides, we took a few photos but the hawk kept its distance from us.

Digiscoping video / Leica Scope (APO – Televid 65)

Then , a few days after that, a juvenile was spotted in the Tres Puentes wetland,  just north of the city, where it had last been recorded 10 years ago.

Semi-wild, open areas like this urban wetland or urban parks arte often visited by birds of prey that leave their forestal habitats to spend the cold months, and that sems to be the case with this poorly-known species too. So we headed north of the city towards Tres Puentes urban wetland.