Vinous-breasted Sparrowhawk

The vinous-breasted sparrowhawk is a small forest hawk with yellow eyes, yellow legs and a lime-green base to the bill. Adults are slate-grey above with a wine-coloured breast, dirty-white belly and pale thighs. Juveniles are rufous above, boldly spotted and barred with blackish markings and heavily streaked below. The unspotted tail separates it from the spot-tailed goshawk, while pale eyes help exclude adult Chinese and Japanese sparrowhawks (eBird/Merlin general species account).

This raptor occurs from coastal forest and mangroves through woodland to mountain forest on Sulawesi and nearby islands, including Banggai and Sula. It hunts small passerine birds and does not habitually soar. Adults can be extremely difficult to separate visually from the small sparrowhawk; the lower-pitched kew-kew-ke-ke-ke-ke call is important, while the largest females are longer-bodied, longer-tailed, larger-billed and longer-toed. No dependable breeding details were available in the opened sources (eBird/Merlin; Wikipedia general species account).