Jerdon's baza

Jerdon's baza (Aviceda jerdoni) is a moderate sized brown hawk with a thin white-tipped black crest usually held erect. It is found in South-east Asia. It inhabits foothills in the terai and is rarer in evergreen forests and tea estates.

The common name and Latin binomial commemorate the surgeon-naturalist Thomas C. Jerdon.

It is about 46 cm long. It is confusable with crested goshawk or the changeable hawk-eagle in flight, but can be distinguished by the longer upright crest, very broad and rounded paddle-shaped wings and mostly plain and pale underparts. It has a white chin and a bold black mesial stripe.

Several subspecies are recognized within its large distribution range. These include:

A. j. jerdoni (Blyth, 1842) – Sikkim to Assam, Burma, Sumatra

A. j. ceylonensis (Legge, 1876) – South India and Sri Lanka

A. j. borneensis (Sharpe, 1893) – Borneo

A. j. magnirostris (Kaup, 1847) – Luzon, Mindanao

A. j. leucopias (Sharpe, 1888) – Romblon, Samar, Palawan

A. j. celebensis (Schlegel, 1873)