I have just returned from a trip to Chile, and there will be many more questions and confirmations coming, but here is the first one.
I saw a very white hawk in central Chile near some Notophagus forest, in a location (Vilches) where I also saw several Variable hawk. Basically, I only saw the underside, and it was basically similar to the form of variable hawk that has white underside with dark hood except that this bird did not show any signs of the strong black subterminal band on the tail that VH has. The bird I am talking about had a strong secondary bulge and a rather narrow hand; Jaramillo's book states that the trailing edge of the wing is straight in WtH, contra what is shown in the drawing. The bird I saw had darker flight feathers than coverts, and I did not see dark on the sides of the body if it was present (low fly over, from straight ahead, no views from the side).
So the questions are:
Can this observation be explained by variable hawk, does that species show adult-like underside without black tail band?
Can this observation be explained by WTH? Which shape of the wing does this species really have?
thanks
Niels
I saw a very white hawk in central Chile near some Notophagus forest, in a location (Vilches) where I also saw several Variable hawk. Basically, I only saw the underside, and it was basically similar to the form of variable hawk that has white underside with dark hood except that this bird did not show any signs of the strong black subterminal band on the tail that VH has. The bird I am talking about had a strong secondary bulge and a rather narrow hand; Jaramillo's book states that the trailing edge of the wing is straight in WtH, contra what is shown in the drawing. The bird I saw had darker flight feathers than coverts, and I did not see dark on the sides of the body if it was present (low fly over, from straight ahead, no views from the side).
So the questions are:
Can this observation be explained by variable hawk, does that species show adult-like underside without black tail band?
Can this observation be explained by WTH? Which shape of the wing does this species really have?
thanks
Niels