Buteo albonotatus
Silhouette: Lauren Anderson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The zone-tailed hawk (Buteo albonotatus) is a medium-sized hawk of warm, dry parts of the Americas. It is somewhat similar in plumage and flight style to a common scavenger, the turkey vulture, and may benefit from being able to blend into groups of vultures. It feeds on small terrestrial tetrapods of all kinds.
In 1844, the English zoologist George Robert Gray, in his List of the Specimens of Birds in the Collection of the British Museum, mentioned the zone-tailed hawk under the common name "white spotted buzzard" and coined the binomial name Buteo albonotatus. As Gray omitted a species description, his binomial name is considered nomen nudum, a naked name, and is not recognised. Instead, the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup is recognised as the authority as in 1847, he provided a brief description and used Gray's name Buteo albonotatus. The type locality is Mexico. The specific epithet albonotatus combines the Latin albus meaning "white" with notatus meaning "marked". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
The zone-tailed hawk is a fairly large but slender Buteo hawk. Grown birds are 46 to 56 cm (18 to 22 in) in length with a... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tegucigalpa | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 2 | Caracas | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 3 | Panama City | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 4 | Salvador | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Guadalajara | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 6 | Vitória | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 7 | Monterrey | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 8 | San Pedro Sula | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 9 | Mesa | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 10 | Maceió | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ecological Center of Sonora | 🇲🇽 Mexico | |
| 2 | Parque Municipal Summit | 🇵🇦 Panama |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Zone-tailed Hawk sighting in Soberanía National Park on a given day, based on 438 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 232nd most-seen of the 449 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June and August–November
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Zone-tailed Hawk in Soberanía National Park on a given day, against under 5% in July and December–May, the lowest months. Those are among Soberanía National Park's wettest months, with about 320 mm of rain a month against 25 mm in February.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Zone-tailed 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.
12th of 53
Of the 53 parks where we can rate Zone-tailed Hawk sightings, Soberanía National Park ranks 12th at under 5%. The best odds are in Grand Canyon National Park (United States, about 20%), Big Bend National Park (United States, about 10%) and Cerro Azul Meámbar National Park (Honduras, about 10%).
Same genus: Buteo
The closest relatives of the Zone-tailed Hawk that you can see in Soberanía National Park (genus Buteo, Buteos) are Broad-winged Hawk (about 10%), Short-tailed Hawk (about 10%) and Gray-lined Hawk (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Zone-tailed Hawk is recorded against all the birds logged in Soberanía National Park (438 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.
