Pacific Baza

About the Pacific Baza

The Pacific baza (Aviceda subcristata), also known as the crested hawk, crested baza, and Pacific cuckoo-falcon, is a slender, medium-sized species of hawk in the family Accipitridae. It is mostly grey, brown, and white coloured and grows to a length of 35–46 centimetres (14–18 in). It is an omnivore and usually does not migrate. The breeding season for the species lasts from September to at least February, during which time specimens commonly fly and vocalise for display. It lives in Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and East Timor, in forests, savannas, and freshwater bodies. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists it as a least concern species.

John Gould first presented this new species as Lepidogenys subcristatus to a Zoological Society of London meeting in December 1837, placing it into a genus (Lophotes Gray 1831, but with this new name as it was already in use for a genus of fish) that was at the time considered separate from Aviceda. The name would be formally published in April of the next year, in part 3 of Gould's A synopsis of the birds of Australia, and the adjacent islands, which reproduced the paper read the previous... Wikipedia →