Zone-tailed hawk

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.

Distribution

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.