Aplomado Falcon

How to find it

Finding one by chance is unlikely, because so much open land where it could occur is hard to reach. Birders have mostly seen it when a bird stayed put and word spread. So keep an ear open for local reports if you travel in the northern winter. At Coris, birders waited an hour or two before the falcon appeared. Scan the prominent perches over open country with scattered trees, and bring patience along with a scope.

How to recognise it

Look for a slender, long-tailed falcon with a bold face pattern, described as diagnostic.

Adults show:

- blackish upperparts

- a pale buff cheek, throat and chest

- a broad pale stripe over the eye

- a cinnamon belly and thighs

- yellow bare skin around the eye and yellow legs

The male is about 38 cm long and the female about 43 cm.

Young birds, the ones most likely to turn up here, look like adults in general form, though this detail comes from the species across its range. The chest is streaked with black, the pale areas are buffy, and the cinnamon underparts are paler.

What it sounds like

Recording: Rodrigo Paiva Lazaro, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

It watches from a prominent perch, then dives hard onto prey and returns to the perch to eat. Prey includes small birds, small mammals and large insects flushed by pasture fires.

In flight it uses long, narrow wings to skim low over the ground between distant perches. At Coris it was reported to be hunting doves.

Across its range it chases doves and small to medium songbirds in the air, and pairs often hunt together, with one flushing prey for the other.

Where it lives

It prefers savannas and grasslands with scattered trees.

In Costa Rica most of the few records come from Guanacaste, which has plenty of wide open habitat for this falcon.

One young bird also stayed at Coris in Cartago. Coris is the largest remaining open grassland there, in an industrial and farming zone.

When to see it

It may arrive with the northern winter migration, especially in Guanacaste. The one early report was from mid-October.

Similar birds

Bat Falcon and Orange-breasted Falcon share the black, white and rust pattern below. They are built more like a Peregrine, with solid blackish heads and darker rufous bellies, while the Aplomado has a pale eyebrow stripe. The Bat Falcon is much smaller, and the Orange-breasted Falcon is more compact. The Aplomado's flight shape is closest to an American Kestrel's. When you see a dark falcon, compare it also with Merlin and Peregrine.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Spanish speakers also call this falcon halcón aleto, halcón perdiguero, halcón fajado and halcón plomizo. These names come from a general Spanish-language account, not a Costa Rican one.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it M?, a migrant whose status is uncertain, and it is Least Concern worldwide on the IUCN Red List, though numbers are reported to be falling.

Photography tips

At Coris the falcon stayed too far away for good photos, even though a nearby White-tailed Kite came close enough to shoot. Bring a scope and a long lens.