An adult Great Black Hawk is about 56 to 64cm long. Normally they weigh around 1.1 kg. Adult Great Black Hawks are all black except for the white on the tip and the base of their tail. They also have yellow feet. A young Great Black Hawk is dark brown with spotting streaks.

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Great Black Hawks only soar in the air during breeding season. They have a three-syllable whistle call used when soaring. Their nests are placed about 10 to 15 feet above ground. They are made mostly of a mixed variety of sticks. Great Black Hawks are mainly costal birds, but they are also found near forests and open woodland areas by water. These birds lay dark blotched eggs. Some of the places that they can be found are New Mexico, Southern Utah, Texas, Panama, Peru, and costal places in South America.

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These animals do well in their ecosystem, because they live in broad ranged habitats, and the habitats have large varieties of food for them to eat. There are about 100,000 to 1,000,000 Great Black Hawks. In the last 10 years, the population has gone down about 30 percent.

 

These birds eat mainly reptiles, small invertebrates, large insects, snakes, rodents, weak birds, and fish. They mostly catch their prey by foot. They are pretty highly ranked in the food chain because they can fly away from their predators.

 

They are caught only if they are weak and slow so they cannot get away. They compete with other hawks for their food and large mammals. They do not really have many predators because they are mostly located near the coast. If they lived near the woodlands or grasslands, their main predators would be coyotes, wolves, and foxes.

 

I thought that it was interesting that Great Black Hawks only soar in circles when it is breeding season. What I also found interesting is that the pairs soar together. Another thing was that they live near areas that have a lot of water; I thought that they lived in the desert areas.

 

Author: Briana P

Published: 02/2007

 

Bibliography: www.answers.com www.arthurgrosset.com www.iucnreditlist.org http://links.jstar.org/ www.wikapedia.org www.1.nhl.nl/~ribot/english/buur_ng.htm-4k-