Galápagos wildlife · Bird · Endemic
The Galápagos hawk
Buteo galapagoensis · Accipitridae
Short answer
The Galápagos hawk is the archipelago’s only resident bird of prey and its top land predator. It is endemic, listed as Vulnerable, and it has already been wiped out on the islands where most visitors stay: Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Floreana, Baltra and Seymour. It survives on Isabela, Fernandina, Santiago, Santa Fé, Española, Pinta, Marchena and Pinzón. It is also famously unafraid of people — it will let you walk past at arm’s length.
Actual size
wingspan.
- Wingspan
- 1.2 m
- Weight
- 0.8–1.4 kg — females noticeably larger than males
- Lifespan
- 100+ yrs, 20 years in the wild
A female Galápagos hawk can have up to seven mates at once, and every one of them helps raise the chicks. It is one of the few birds anywhere that breeds this way, and it exists because on a small island with fixed territories, sharing a female beats holding no territory at all.
Where you actually see one
This is the part a general encyclopedia cannot tell you: not where the species occurs, but which sites you can stand on, and what each one is like.
- 1
The most reliable sighting on a southern itinerary. Often perched on the rocks beside the trail, watching the booby colonies. Cruise only.
- 2
Regularly along the coastal trail, and unusually approachable even by this species’ standards.
- 3
Frequently perched on the giant opuntia along the inland trail — one of the easier places to photograph one.
- 4
Hunting marine iguana hatchlings along the shore. Western itineraries only.
- 5
Isabela — Sierra Negra and the highlands
The only realistic chance on a land-based trip, and it is a chance rather than an expectation.
When to go for this one
Year-round — it does not migrate and it does not leave. If you want to watch it hunt, the marine iguana hatching season on Fernandina and Isabela, roughly January to April, is when the shoreline is full of prey.
The archipelago has two seasons and they are good at different things — we break both down here, month by month.
How to tell it apart
- Big and dark. Adults are sooty brown-black all over, with a barred grey tail.
- Juveniles are completely different: pale, mottled and streaky, and they are routinely mistaken for a separate species.
- Broad wings and a short, square tail. It soars on flat wings rather than in the shallow V of a vulture.
- The female is clearly larger than the male — unusual to notice in the field, but at a nest it is obvious.
- Legs and cere are yellow, which stands out against the dark plumage.
What it does, and why
- Cooperative polyandry: a female breeds with several males at once — sometimes as many as seven — and all of them help incubate and feed the chicks. Very few birds on Earth do this.
- Apex predator with no natural enemies as an adult. It takes lava lizards, iguana hatchlings, young tortoises, birds, insects and carrion.
- Hunts on foot as readily as from the air, walking into crevices after prey.
- Holds a territory for life, and pairs — or groups — stay on it year-round.
- Shows almost no fear of people, which is exactly why it was so easy to shoot.
Why people miss it, and who it is not for
This is the part we can write and an encyclopedia cannot: what actually goes wrong when someone comes looking for this animal. It is from running these islands, not from a field guide.
You are probably staying on an island where it no longer exists
Almost every land-based trip is based on Santa Cruz or San Cristóbal. The hawk was exterminated on both. People spend a week in the Galápagos scanning the sky for it and never had a chance — and nobody told them.
The juvenile looks like a different bird
Adults are dark and uniform; juveniles are pale, blotchy and streaked. Visitors photograph one of each and think they have seen two species. Guides do not always correct it.
People look up
It spends a lot of its time perched low — on a cactus, a fence post, a rock beside the path — and walking past at head height. Scanning the sky is how most people miss the one sitting three metres away.
It is confused with the short-eared owl
On Genovesa the owl hunts in daylight and gets called a hawk. There are no hawks on Genovesa at all. If you are on the northern route, whatever you saw was the owl.
Conservation status
IUCN Red List: Vulnerable
Vulnerable, with a small population confined to a shrinking set of islands. It was systematically killed on the inhabited islands by settlers protecting livestock, and it is now extinct on Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Floreana, Baltra, Seymour and Daphne. Introduced predators take chicks where the hawk survives alongside them. Its tameness — the thing visitors love — is what made it easy to eliminate.
Questions people ask about the galápagos hawk
Where can you see the Galápagos hawk?
On Española, Santiago, Santa Fé, Fernandina, Isabela, Pinta, Marchena and Pinzón. Not on Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Floreana, Baltra or Seymour — it was exterminated on all of those, which unfortunately includes the islands most visitors sleep on.
Can you see it on a land-based trip?
Only really on Isabela, and it is a chance rather than a plan. Our own Galápagos trips are land-based on Santa Cruz, Isabela and San Cristóbal — so if the hawk is what you came for, you need a cruise that reaches Española, Santiago or Fernandina, and we will say so rather than sell you the wrong trip.
Is the Galápagos hawk dangerous?
Not to people. It is the top land predator in the islands, but it takes lizards, hatchlings and carrion. Its lack of fear of humans is a problem for the hawk, not for you.
Why does one female have several mates?
It is called cooperative polyandry. On islands with limited territory, a male that shares a female and helps raise chicks does better than a male with no territory at all. Up to seven males may share one female and all help feed the young.
How many Galápagos hawks are left?
A few hundred breeding adults, spread across the islands where it survives. It is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN and its range has contracted sharply since the islands were settled.
What else is on the same islands
These share at least one island with the galápagos hawk. On a real day out you are likely to see several of them on the same walk.
- Galápagos giant tortoise — Isabela
- Marine iguana — Isabela, Fernandina
- Galápagos sea lion — Española, Santa Fé, Isabela
- Galápagos penguin — Isabela, Fernandina
- Green sea turtle — Isabela
- Red-lipped batfish — Isabela
- Waved albatross — Española
- Flightless cormorant — Fernandina, Isabela
- Galápagos land iguana — Santa Fé, Isabela
- Galápagos fur seal — Santiago, Isabela
- Sally Lightfoot crab — Isabela, Santiago, Fernandina
- Blue-footed booby — Española, Isabela
