Gray-bellied Hawk

How to find it

Focus on the northern Caribbean lowlands, around Sarapiquí and San Carlos, where every Costa Rican record comes from. Give your time to forest edges. At Chilamate, birders found the hawk at a forest edge and watched it for several minutes before it flew off. Scan big trees in open pasture beside dense forest, and look up for birds soaring high over the canopy. What was probably one individual was seen at one San Carlos site over about eighteen months, so repeat visits to the same area may matter. Listen for the cackling kek series.

How to recognise it

Adults are plain gray above, with a black crown and a pale gray belly. The cere, eyes and legs are yellow. The bill is black with a bluish gray base. The head looks hooded because the dark plumage ends abruptly at a white throat. The dark tail has three wide pale gray bands and a narrow white tip. Females are about 40% larger than males.

Juveniles are far easier. They have a rufous nape and breast and a white belly marked with black, so they look like a small Ornate Hawk-Eagle. That resemblance is a defensive mimicry, and it makes young birds easy to recognise. Adults, by contrast, have been called a very confusing raptor to identify.

Behaviour and diet

Little is known about its habits. It often perches in the open or soars high over forest, and it is thought to be a still hunter that waits on a perch and then gives chase. It has been seen foraging and nesting in degraded habitats, so it may tolerate some disturbance.

In the one nest studied, in Brazil, only the male hunted and only the female fed the nestlings. In Costa Rica, nesting has not been studied, and the authors of the latest paper call a nesting study there highly informative because the effects of any northward spread are unknown.

Where it lives

Across its range it lives in tropical lowland evergreen forest, at about 0 to 500 m elevation. It also uses patches of riparian forest, other dense woodland and sometimes secondary forest.

In Costa Rica, records come only from the northern Caribbean lowlands, in Sarapiquí in Heredia and San Carlos in Alajuela. The juvenile photographed near Chilamate, at about 70 m elevation, sat in a big tree in cattle pasture next to continuous dense forest.

When to see it

No source gives a season for the species in Costa Rica. Dated records fall in June 2008, March 2009, April 2014, September 2022 and July 2023, and one bird was seen between August 2018 and March 2020.

Similar birds

Adults can be confused with Collared and Slaty-backed Forest Falcons because of similar size and shape. Compared with the Slaty-backed, the hawk is larger, with a relatively shorter tail, less obvious bare facial skin and darker gray bars on the tail. At Boca Tapada, observers separated an adult from the resident Bicolored Hawk by its yellow cere, eyes and legs, three wide gray tail bars and black cheeks.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The Costa Rican Spanish name is Gavilán Vientrigris. Panama uses Gavilán Ventrigrís, other South American names include Azor Ventrigrís, Azor Selvático and Esparvero grande, and Guarani speakers in Paraguay call it Taguato'i.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it R?, a rare species whose status is uncertain, and worldwide it is rated Near Threatened, having been Least Concern until 2012.

Photography tips

The Chilamate juvenile was photographed from several meters away at a forest edge, and it stayed quiet in its tree for several minutes. Look for birds perched in the open or soaring high over forest, and remember it is thought to wait on a perch, so patience at exposed edges is the plan.