Japanese Sparrowhawk - BirdForum Opus

Male
Photo by SeeToh
Singapore

Accipiter gularis

Identification

Female
Photo by Wong Keng
Singapore, 21 December 2019

23–30 cm (9-11¾ in)
Male has dark greyish-blue upperparts, pinkish-rufous barrings on underparts, reddish eyes with yellow eyering, yellow cere and faint or no mesial streak. Female resembles male but larger and has distinctly browner upperparts, yellowish eyes, more prominent mesial streak and all barred underparts. Juvenile resembles female but has darker brown upperparts, streaked breast and flanks/belly marked with broken bars. Both adult and juvenile shows five prominent fingers in flight.

Distribution

North-East Asia. Breeds in eastern and southern Siberia, in eastern China, Korea and Japan.

Resident in southern Japan and the Ryukyu Islands, South Korea, southern China and Taiwan. Northern breeders are migratory and winter from southern China, Thailand and Indochina south to the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia, most numerous on Sulawesi and the Greater Sundas, rarely east to Timor.

Taxonomy

Subspecies

There are 3 subspecies^[1]:

Juvenile
Photo by SeeToh
Singapore

• A. g. sibiricus:

• Mongolia to eastern China; winters to India and Indonesia

• A. g. gularis:

• Sakhalin, Kuril Island and Japan; winters to Philippines and Indonesia

• A. g. iwasakii:

• South Ryukyu Islands (Iriomote and Ishigaki)

Habitat

They are to be found in a variety of forest types, forest edges and cultivated land with scattered trees.

Behaviour

Diet

Their main diet consists of birds, mostly small forest passerines but will take larger birds up to the size of Azure-winged Magpie.

Breeding

They nest up to 10 m up in a tree.

References

1. Clements, J. F., P. C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2023. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2023. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2023. IOC World Bird List (v 13.2). Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.13.2. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
3. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved Nov 2017)
4. BF Member observations
5. Wikipedia

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Japanese Sparrowhawk. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 21 March 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Japanese_Sparrowhawk

External Links

Search for photos of Japanese Sparrowhawk in the gallery

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1