The Zone-tailed Hawk is a blackish buteo of the American southwest. It soars over desert and grassland often with groups of Turkey Vultures and may be a mimic of that species. Like the vultures, it shows a marked dihedral in its wings and sometimes flies unsteadily like they do. Its upper surfaces are largely all black with two to three grayish bands showing on the upper tail surface. However, its underwing flight feathers are silvery and barred with black, contrasting with the solid black wing linings and solid black body and white bands on the underside of the tail.
SIZE
The Zone-tailed Hawk is a large buteo. The female is larger than the male. The average length for both sexes is 20 inches (51 centimeters). The wingspan (both sexes together) averages 51 inches (129 centimeters). Weights average 2.9 pounds (886 grams) for females and 1.4 pounds (628 grams) for males.
MORPHS
There are no light or dark color morphs or unusual plumages reported for this species.
SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION
Adult - Flight
- all-black body
- black wing linings
- underside of flight feathers light gray with dark gray bars; appears two-toned
- black tail with one wide, white band, and one narrow, white band toward base (male), or with two narrow bands (female) on spread tail
Immature - Flight
- like adults but brownish tinge to body plumage
- body has white spots
- undertail is whitish with five to seven narrow dusky bands and one wide dusky subterminal band
SIMILAR SPECIES
The Turkey Vulture has an unbanded tail, a smaller, bare head and lacks the dark band on the trailing edge of the underwing. The Common Black-Hawk is similar but has a different shape. Its wings are very broad with undersurfaces generally dark, lacking the two-toned appearance of the Zone-tailed Hawk's underwings. In good light, one can see the barring on the flight feathers of the Common Black-Hawk, but it contrasts poorly against a dark background. The Common Black-Hawk also shows a small white patch at the base of the outer primaries and has orange-yellow, not gray facial skin. It shows one wide white band on its short black tail. This band shows on both upper and lower tail surfaces unlike the Zone-tailed Hawk which shows gray bands on the upper tail surface.
Several dark morph buteos could be confused with the Zone-tailed Hawk. The dark morph Swainson's Hawk has more pointed wings which usually show an all dark undersurface or a two-toned effect the reverse of the Zone-tailed underwings. A dark morph Broad-winged Hawk is small (crow-sized) and brown, not black. A dark morph Rough-legged Hawk could be very similar. However, it would usually show a very wide dark subterminal band, and a pale window of unbarred outer primaries. A dark morph immature Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk would be very similar to the Zone-tail but would show several dark bands of equal width on the undertail, while the immature Zone-tailed Hawk would show one wide dark subterminal band and several narrow ones.
OTHER NAMES
The Zone-tailed Hawk is also referred to as the "Band-tailed Hawk" and "Zonetail."
ETYMOLOGY
The scientific name Buteo albonotatus translates into "hawk or falcon" ( buteo Latin) that is "marked with white" (albo Latin = white; notatus Latin = marked).
