Mountain Hawk-eagle
| Mountain Hawk-eagle | ||||||||||||||
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 Probably Spizaetus nipalensis nipalensis
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| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
| Spizaetus nipalensis (Hodgson, 1836) |
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Nisaetus nipalensis Hodgson, 1836 |
The Mountain Hawk-eagle or Hodgson's Hawk-eagle (Spizaetus nipalensis) is a bird of prey. Like all eagles, it is in the family Accipitridae. It breeds in southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka to China and Japan.
The Mountain Hawk-eagle is a medium-large raptor at about 70-72cm in length. The typical adult has brown upperparts and pale underparts, with barring on the undersides of the flight feathers and tail. The breast and belly and underwing coverts are heavily streaked. The wings are broad with a curved trailing edge, and are held in a shallow V in flight. Sexes are similar, but young birds are often whiter-headed.
The Sri Lankan subspecies (S. n. kelaarti) is smaller and has unstreaked buff underwing coverts. The Japanese subspecies S. n. orientalis is larger, lighter, and has only a very small crest, which is large in the other two subspecies.
The heavier underpart streaking and wing shape help to distinguish this species from the similar Changeable Hawk-eagle, (Spizaetus cirrhatus).
It is a bird of mountain woodland, which builds a stick nest in a tree and lays usually a single egg. Mountain Hawk-eagles eat small mammals, birds and reptiles.
Not considered a globally threatened species, the Japanese population is declining however. As the species is a K-strategist like all eagles, it was feared that the ongoing population reduction of S. n. orientalis might lead to loss of genetic diversity, and consequently inbreeding depression. However, genetic diversity was shown to be still considerable at present.(Asai et al. 2006)
References
- Asai, Shigeki; Yamamoto, Yoshihiro & Yamagishi, Satoshi (2006): Genetic diversity and extent of gene flow in the endangered Japanese population of Hodgson’s hawk-eagle, Spizaetus nipalensis. Bird Conservation International 16(2): 113–129. doi:10.1017/S0959270906000050
- BirdLife International (2004). Spizaetus nipalensis. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Grimmett, Richard; Inskipp, Carol, Inskipp, Tim & Byers, Clive (1999): Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.. ISBN 0-691-04910-6
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