Orange-breasted Falcon (Falco deiroleucus)

[order] Falconiformes | [family] Falconidae | [latin] Falco deiroleucus | [IT] Falco pettoarancio | [UK] Orange-breasted Falcon | [FR] Faucon orange | [DE] Rotbrustfalke | [ES] Halcon Pechirrojo | [NL] Bonte Slechtvalk | [SU]Aka

Physical charateristics

The face, sides of head and upper parts in the adult are black; the feathers margined with slate-colour; and the tail with four narrow, white bars. The throat is white, the breast, lower abdomen and thighs orange brown. Across mid-ventral region there is a broad band of black; its feathers barred or tipped with buff to white. The eyes are dark brown; the cere yellowish green; the bill slate black, becoming greenish leaden towards the base on the lower mandible. The feet are bright yellow.
Immatures are similar, but the chest is paler, the lower abdomen and thighs are black barred like the mid-section with buff or white.

Listen to the sound of Orange-breasted Falcon

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Copyright remark: Most sounds derived from xeno-canto

Range

The Orange-breasted Falcon can be found in parts of Mexico, Central America, Panama, Trinidad, and South America, east of the Andes, to Peru, northern Argentina and Paraguay. It is rather uncommon, and frequents altitudes of up to 2.500 meter.

Habitat

Prefers tropical lowland with evergreen forest at an maximum elevation of 2.000 meters. arial hunter mostly seen soaring tropical hills and lower slopes at 500-900 m. In tropical America patchily distributed.

Reproduction

The Orange-breasted Falcon nests in trees and cliffs with nearby water bodies. The emale incubates the 1-3 eggs, while the male feeds her while nesting. he calls her and she picks up the prey, the male rarely enters the nest. If the female rejects prey, the male will cache it instead of delivering it the the young. Incubation lasts for about 30 days, young fledgde after about 40 days

Feeding habits

Birds, including doves, caciques, and parrots.

Video Orange-breasted Falcon

copyright: P. de Groot Boersma

Conservation

This species has a large range, with an estimated global extent of occurrence of 3,300,000 km2. The global population size has not been quantified, but the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population size criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e., less than 10,000 mature individuals in conjunction with appropriate decline rates and subpopulation qualifiers), even though the species is described as ‘rare’ in at least parts of its range (Stotz et al. 1996). Global population trends have not been quantified, but the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e., declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations). For these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern.

Migration

Presumed sedentary

Distribution map