Endangered
Malagasy Harrier
Circus macrosceles
The Malagasy harrier is a bird of prey belonging to the marsh harrier group of harriers.
Appearance
The underparts and rump are whitish and the tail is grey with dark bars. The forewings and wingtips are blackish while the secondaries are grey with dark bars. Females are browner than the males.
It is about 42–55 cm (17–22 in) long. The female is up to 13% larger than the male.
Range and habitat
In Madagascar it is found in marshland and grassland across the island except for the south. It occurs from sea-level up to 1,800 m (5,900 ft). On the Comoros it is more often found in drier habitats and in forested areas.
It inhabits Madagascar and the Comoro Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
It typically feeds by flying low over the ground and dropping down rapidly when it spots its prey. It breeds in marshland, building a nest of grass and stems on the ground or low in a bush.
The Malagasy harrier is a bird of prey belonging to the marsh harrier group of harriers.
In crisis
Malagasy 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 Malagasy Harrier, Wikidata item Q2928699. 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.
