thumb|M. m. metabates, [[The Gambia ]]

The dark chanting goshawk (Melierax metabates) is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae which is found across much of sub-Saharan Africa and southern Arabia, with an isolated and declining population in southern Morocco.

Description

The dark chanting goshawk is a medium-sized, bulky hawk with an upright stance. The head, breast and upperparts are essentially dark grey, while the underparts, other than the breast, are white, finely barred with black. The wing primaries are black, and the tail has broad black and white bars. The cere and the long legs are orange-red. The female is, on average, larger than the male, weighing up to 840g to the male's maximum weight of 700g. Juveniles tend to have browner plumage reminiscent in colour and pattern to a buzzard Buteo spp but with the broad winged, long tailed silhouette of an accipiter.

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Dark Chanting Goshawk (Melierax metabates) juvenile (12907843805).jpg|Juvenile

Dark chanting goshawk (Melierax metabates metabates) with francolin.jpg|M. m. metabates with prey (a francolin), Senegal

Melierax metabates MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.84.1.jpg| Melierax metabates - MHNT

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Voice

As its common name suggests, the dark chanting goshawk is a vocal bird, although less so than its two congeners. It often calls from a perch or in flight, making an accelerating series of piping notes and fluty whistles, which has been described as a song or chant and there are up to a dozen notes in a series

Distribution and subspecies

The dark chanting goshawk breeds in sub-Saharan Africa, but avoids the rainforests of the Congo Basin and the far south, where it is replaced by the pale chanting goshawk and east Africa where the eastern chanting goshawk seems to replace it.

  • Melierax metabates metabates: Senegal and the Gambia east to Ethiopia, south to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Tanzania.
  • Melierax metabates neumanni: Mali east to northern Sudan.
  • Melierax metabates theresae: south west Morocco.
  • Melierax metabates ignoscens: South western Arabia, i.e. south western Saudi Arabia and western Yemen.
  • Melierax metabates mechowi: south eastern Gabon to Angola, south Tanzania south to northern Namibia and north eastern South Africa.

Although the status of M. neumanni is debatable as it is poorly differentiated.

Habits

The dark chanting goshawk preys on a wide variety of animals, especially mammals, birds and reptiles; these are normally hunted from a perch, from which the bird swoops to capture prey on the ground or in the air. They have been recorded following honey badgers (Mellivora capensis), Southern ground-hornbills, dogs or people, catching the small animals disturbed by their passage. Otherwise its wide range means that Birdlife International categorise the species as Least Concern.