The Brown Goshawk (Accipiter fasciatus) is a medium-sized bird of prey

Bird of prey

Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. They are defined as birds that primarily hunt vertebrates, including other birds. Their talons and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....

 in the family Accipitridae found in Australia and surrounding islands.

Description

Its upperparts are grey with a chestnut collar; its underparts are mainly rufous, finely barred with white. Thus it has similar colouring to the Collared Sparrowhawk

Collared Sparrowhawk

The Collared Sparrowhawk is a small, slim bird of prey in the family Accipitridae found in Australia, and New Guinea and nearby smaller islands.- Description :...

 but is larger. The flight is fast and flexible. The body length is 40–55 cm (15.7–21.7 in); the wingspan, 75–95 cm (29.5–37.4 in). Females are noticeably larger: adult males weigh 220 g (7.8 oz), and adult females, 355 g (12.5 oz).

Distribution and habitat

The Brown Goshawk is widespread through Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

, Wallacea

Wallacea

Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of Indonesian islands separated by deep water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram, and...

, New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

, New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

, Vanuatu

Vanuatu

Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...

 and Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

. It is found in forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s and woodlands.

Feeding

It eats mainly bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s; also small mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s, reptile

Reptile

Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...

s, amphibians; occasionally insects.

Breeding

It nests in tall trees on a platform of sticks and twigs lined with green leaves. The clutch

Clutch (eggs)

A clutch of eggs refers to all the eggs produced by birds or reptiles, often at a single time, particularly those laid in a nest.In birds, destruction of a clutch by predators, , results in double-clutching...

 size is usually three, sometimes two or four. The incubation

Avian incubation

Incubation refers to the process by which certain oviparous animals hatch their eggs, and to the development of the embryo within the egg. The most vital factor of incubation is the constant temperature required for its development over a specific period. Especially in domestic fowl, the act of...

 period is about 30 days, with chicks fledging about 31 days after hatching.

Subspecies

There are twelve described subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

:

• A. f. fasciatus (nominate) - (Vigors et Horsfield, 1827)
• A. f. buruensis - Stresemann, 1914
• A. f. didimus - (Mathews, 1912)
• A. f. dogwa - Rand, 1941
• A. f. helmayri - Stresemann, 1922
• A. f. natalis - (Lister, 1889)
• A. f. polycryptus - Rothschild et Hartert, 1915
• A. f. savu - Mayr, 1941
• A. f. stresemanni - Rensch, 1931
• A. f. tjendanae - Stresemann, 1925
• A. f. vigilax - (Wetmore, 1926)
• A. f. wallacii - (Sharpe, 1874)