Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Levant Sparrowhawk - observed in Ngorongoro,Tanzania

The 22nd November 2011 me and my family was heading for Ndutu lodge via the Ngorongoro crater. Due to heavy rain the days before the road conditions were so and so, and we were quite alone in the crater. Doing our way over the bottom of the crater we stopped for a lone elephant bull, and there to the left of us we observed a slimlooking young hawk perched in a thorn bush. 6-7 quick photos and the bird was gone, no views of the front and just knowing this was something we never saw before.

On our return to Northern Norway a quick look at the photos I was still uncertain of the ID and sent 2 photos to Ron Eggert tanzaniabirds.com and he sent it further to africanraptors and Rob Davies.
They concluded this is a fine young Levant Sparrowhawk A. brevipes. Thanks to Ron and Rob for the help with checking this out!

Checking Britton 1980 I soon found out this is a mega finding for Tanzania, 1-one historic record in W Tanzania only, and only four for Kenya! Only a handful records for Tanzania the last years (one Jan 2010, Neil and Liz Baker) and East-Africa makes this a very nice bird to see.
Observers: Stein Ø. Nilsen, Tone Malm and Stine Malm Nilsen
See all the photos at tromsofoto.net 
Copyright: Stein Ø. Nilsen 2011





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1 comment:

  1. Stein NilsenJanuary 3, 2012 at 11:38 PM

    Hello Colin, Stein

    I think these are very fine photos of a juv Levant, possibly female

    They seem to be more chocolate brown on the back than juv Shikra which are more often rufous

    And I think you are right with the long primary projection

    But most important is the dark iris shown on this bird, something which makes Levant very unusual as an accipiter

    A juvenile Shikra would have a pale iris changing to ruby red in adulthood.

    Thanks

    Rob (Davies)

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