Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle in Tortí, a report by Cedric Kinschots

Bill Adsett, Mark Letzer and the undersigned visited the San Francisco Reserve in Tortí on Saturday, September 3, in search of Wing-banded Antbird (which we whiffed on). Around 8 a.m., while we were birding around the pond just before the entrance to the forest, we observed a mature Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle soaring over the forested ridge. The striking white head, white underparts of wings, black upperparts of wings, tail pattern, feathers on legs, orange cere and black around eye were all observed. I attach some pictures taken by Bill. Our bird was briefly molested by a pair of dark raptors, which we could not definitively identify. From my very vague shots (also attached), I would guess dark-morph Short-tailed Hawk because of the smaller size, yellow feet and pale primaries near the end of the wings.