African Zoology
Remarkable moult in the Black Sparrow hawk
A specimen can reveal the secrets of life of an animal The scientific study collections in the RMCA hold 64 specimens of the African Black Sparrow hawk Accipiter melanoleucus. Their moult was studied recently by Michel Louette *.
The annual primary adult moult in Accipiter is an obligate event, which takes up to six months, during which all primary feathers are replaced from inner to outer, and in a single wave. For the female primary moult starts while she is brooding eggs and continues when she is caring for the small young.
This moult stage does not match the single breeding attempt per year, which is the rule in these hawks. Such a moult is well-known to occur however in very few regularly multi-brooded small raptors of other genera. The above mentioned cases therefore indicate probably multiple brooding in the Black Sparrow hawk. Indeed, ornithologists in South Africa have recently, and independently from the RMCA, observed this in the wild. Based on moult pattern, we now suspect that multiple-brooding occurs in other parts of Africa too, including the DR Congo, where this hawk has not yet been studied well in life.
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