African Goshawk Accipiter tachiro Scientific name definitions

The African Goshawk is one of the most widespread, numerous, and commonly observed Accipiter species within its extremely extensive distribution across the vast majority of sub-Saharan Africa. The frequency with which the species is observed in part stems from it being very vocal, with has an obvious above-canopy display flight that draws the attention of observers. It occurs in a variety of wooded habitats and at all elevations across large parts of East and southern Africa, from Eritrea south to the Cape, as well as in the lowlands of West and Central Africa. Although the life history, including breeding, of the African Goshawk is better known than most Accipiter species in Africa, many of the accumulated data are anecdotal, or the result of a handful of older, less in-depth studies; and, for those populations inhabiting West and Central Africa, information concerning its nesting biology is almost entirely limited to data indicating seasonality alone. The taxonomy of this species has been rather contested for decades; traditionally treated as a single species, as it now is here, many authors have preferred to consider Accipiter tachiro as two, or more, species, but the treatment of subspecies under even a two-species arrangement has varied, so for example the northernmost subspecies, A. t. unduliventer, has at times been regarded as a subspecies of the mainly West and Central African toussenellii group, rather than with other subspecies in East and southern Africa. Two of the nine subspecies of African Goshawk currently recognized, lopezi and pembaensis, are confined to islands, on Bioko (in the Gulf of Guinea) and Pemba (in the relatively inshore waters of the Indian Ocean, off Tanzania), respectively.