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Juvenile Pale Chanting Goshawk

This bird was actually very easy to photograph, as it was behaving in a slightly unusual manner - hanging out in the same place next to the road for a couple of days, mooching around, scratching the ground, and generally acting in a most adolescent fashion.

Juveniles are often not scared of humans.

We had a bateleur we photographed with a Sony Mavica 1.2 meg, in 2000, in Kgalagadi and it would not move even when I tried to 'encourage' it. Mrs BB wanted a photo of it taking off but we gave up.

The bird is a sub-adult - hence the blue feathers emerging - and would put it at around 1 yr old

The pale chanting goshawk is the most common raptor in Kgalagadi. I have also seen them as far south west as Vanrhynsdorp and east along the N2 near Caledon.

Yip. Driving around in Kgalagadi during summer and you see one almost every 50m. Or so it feels

My folks call it the Kalahari Chicken because it is so common

Saw quite a few on the way from CT to Wilderness NP this weekend on the R62 between Worcester and Oudtshoorn, on telephone poles.

I've seen them in KTP following snakes from hole to hole (whistling rats) and then grabbing anything that comes out and the snake might miss.

Here is one taken during our recent trip to Addo. Saw numerous ones and nearly got a excellent close up of one sitting 2 meters from the car on a small bush but some person came charging from the front past us and all I got was legs and back side.

Hir Forum Members

Could you please help identify the bird in the attached image. We think it it is an elbino Pale Chanting Goshawk.

What do you experts think?



code edited by gwen

This appears to me to be a leucistic Pale/Dark Chanting Goshawk. Where it was sighted would be about the only way to determine one or the other. The tree it is in appears to be a Camel Thorn (Acasia Erioloba) which would suggest the western half of the country and thus it is likely it is a PCG. BTW. it is not albino (if it were it would have a pink eye) but rather leucistic (or white coloured).

Hi j-ms

Thanks for your response. Yes, we spotted the bird at the Unions End Picnic spot in the KTP in August 2007.

Regards
petdes

The September edition of African Birds and Birding shows an image of a leucistic PCG taken at Unions End recently. It is likely that it is the same bird.

Heres what we think is a Southern pale chanting goshawk, it was between Barrydale and Oudtshoorn in the karoo landscape there. Date was Feb 10th, and it was like all the other buzzards along there sitting on a fence post waiting to fly away, except this one didn't. Any ideas?
/Neil
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2128/233 ... bdeb_m.jpg