Rupornis magnirostris
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
The roadside hawk (Rupornis magnirostris) is a relatively small bird of prey found in the Americas. This vocal species is often the most common raptor in its range. It has many subspecies and is now usually placed in the monotypic genus Rupornis instead of Buteo.
The roadside hawk was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the eagles, hawks and relatives in the genus Falco and coined the binomial name Falco magnirostris. Gmelin based his description on the "Épervier à gros bec de Cayenne" that had been described and illustrated in 1770 by the French polymath Comte de Buffon in his multi-volume Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The roadside hawk is now the only species placed in the genus Rupornis that was introduced in 1844 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek rhupos meaning "dirt" or "filth" with ornis meaning "bird". The specific epithet magnirostris combines the Latin magnus meaning "great" with -rostris meaning "billed".
Twelve subspecies are recognised. Their distributions are... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | São Luís | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Natal | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Salvador | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Recife | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Cali | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 6 | Fortaleza | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 7 | João Pessoa | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Cochabamba | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 9 | Medellín | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 10 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zoológico de Brasília | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Parque Municipal Summit | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 3 | Parque Zoobotânico Arruda Câmara (BICA) | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Zoológico Dois Irmãos | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Municipal Zoological Park Quinzinho de Barros | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 6 | Bioparque Los Ocarros | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 7 | Zoológico do CIGS | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Mangal das Garças | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Roadside Hawk sighting in Carara National Park on a given day, based on 564 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 200th most-seen of the 414 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Roadside Hawk in Carara National Park on a given day, against about 10% in July to May, the lowest months. That is one of Carara National Park's wettest months, with about 580 mm of rain against 35 mm in February.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Roadside Hawk sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
51st of 77
Of the 77 parks where we can rate Roadside Hawk sightings, Carara National Park ranks 51st at about 10%. The best odds are in Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas (Brazil, about 70%), El Palmar National Park (Argentina, about 60%) and El Impenetrable National Park (Argentina, about 60%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Accipitridae
The closest relatives of the Roadside Hawk that you can see in Carara National Park (family Accipitridae, Hawks, Eagles, and Kites) are Common Black-Hawk (about 40%), Gray-lined Hawk (about 20%) and Plumbeous Kite (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Roadside Hawk is recorded against all the birds logged in Carara National Park (564 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
