Endangered
Black Harrier
Circus maurus
The black harrier is a medium-sized African harrier whose range extends from South Africa to Botswana and Namibia.
Appearance
Even so, in flight, a white rump and flight feathers becomes visible. Male and female plumages are similar, while juveniles have buff underparts and heavily spotted breasts.
It has a wingspan of 105–115 cm (41–45 in) and a body length of 44–50 cm (17–20 in).
Published measurements include mass about 33.
Range and habitat
Nests are concentrated either along the coastal strip or inland in a more montane habitat. The black harrier is a medium-sized African harrier whose range extends from South Africa to Botswana and Namibia.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The black harrier is a small mammal specialist that feed mostly on small rodents and birds and will occasionally take reptiles, catching them while flying low over its hunting grounds. The Four- striped Mouse, Rhabdomys pumilio, is the main prey.
Regional differences in diet have also been recorded with a greater consumption of birds inland than at the coast Variation in diet is thought to be associated with local weather conditions. Inland, during hot temperatures the proportion of small mammals in the harrier's diet declines, because the hotter temperatures reduce the activity of South African small mammals during the day. Higher temperatures may also lead to poorer environmental conditions for breeding resulting in a decreased abundance of small mammals.
In crisis
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Black Harrier is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Black Harrier, Wikidata item Q1077281. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
