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The Zone-tailed Hawk (Buteo albonotatus) is a medium-sized hawk of warm, dry parts of the Americas. It is somewhat similar in plumage and flight style to a common scavenger, the turkey vulture, and may benefit from being able to blend into groups of vultures. It feeds on small vertebrates of all kinds (other than fish), including various small mammals and birds.

Zone-tailed hawks range from parts of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas almost throughout inland Mexico and the central portions of Central America down into eastern Colombia, Ecuador and, more sporadically, into Peru, southern Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and northern Argentina. In winter they generally withdraw from the U.S. and northernmost Mexico, with these populations wintering mostly in Oaxaca and the Yucatán Peninsula. The hawks of Central America may be seasonally migratory, although their movements are not well known. Zone-tails sometimes wander out of their normal range, and the bird was once recorded in Nova Scotia.[2]

Zone-tailed hawks can adapt to various habitats across their broad range, including both closed and open ones and wet and dry ones. Often, the largest numbers are found in rocky areas with access to water. They often reside in coniferous or pine-oak forests as well as timbered canyonland, hilly riverine woods, dry open boscage and scrub, humid forests and overgrown marshes. They may forage over ranches and even semi-desert, but always need at least scattered tree thickets for nesting. They may be distributed in elevation from sea-level to 3,000 m (9,800 ft), though are mainly found below 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in the north and below 500 m (1,600 ft) in the southern reaches of the breeding range.

This photo was taken in Costa Rica on the Tarcoles River.

Zone-tailed Hawk

Zone-taled Hawk 2489 l