Red Goshawk
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Order: Falconiformes
Family: Accipitridae

[Photo] Autour rouge - Erythrotriorchis radiatus - Red Goshawk. Author: John Gould (1804 ??? 1881). Source: www.oiseaux.net/photos/john.gould/autour.rouge.1.html

The Red Goshawk (Erythrotriorchis radiatus) is probably the rarest Australian bird of prey. It is found mainly in the savanna woodlands of northern Australia, particularly near watercourses. It takes a broad range of live prey, mostly birds.

The Red Goshawk used to be regarded as a very large member of the goshawk subfamily, but it is now believed that the goshawk resemblance is convergent. Experts now group the Red Goshawk with the superficially dissimilar Black-breasted Buzzard and Square-tailed Kite as one of the Australasian old endemic raptors. It is believed that the ancestors of these birds, possibly together with a handful of species from South-east Asia and Africa, occupied Gondwana and over the millennia have diverged into their current forms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Goshawk

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