Falco concolor - Sooty Falcon
Feather characters. Barbules are rather long (1.9-2.6 mm) and divided into pigmented nodes and filamentous internodes. Occasionally some pigment may be found in parts of internodes (less than 50%). Slightly thickened nodes (12-14 per mm) are equally distributed along the entire length of barbules, only slightly decreasing in size towards distal end. Villi are absent and internodes are occasionally kinked. Minute prongs are present on distal end of barbules and on both sides of the pennulum.
Field characters. Length 33-36 cm; wingspan 85-110 cm. Weight 250 g (Dunning, 1993). Medium-sized falcon, approximately intermediate between Hobby and Eleonora's Falcon (Falco Eleonorae, not included in BRIS), with long wings and characteristic long, wedge-shaped tail. Adult almost uniform blue-grey, only flight feathers and tail tip darker, and chin slightly paler. Eye-ring yellow. In female cere and legs yellow; in male both more orange. No colour morphs, unlike Eleonora's Falcon, but becomes progressively darker with age. Dark morph of Eleonora's Falcon generally darker; also separable by size, tail-shape (in Sooty slightly narrower and shorter with elongated central feathers), and more uniformly coloured underwing (Eleonora's has pale bases to flight feathers). Male Red-Footed Falcon has upperwing pattern reversed compared to Sooty Falcon: paler silvery primaries contrasting with darker body. Juvenile with upperbody buff-fringed dark grey, flight feathers almost black, and uppertail unbarred, darker to tip; underparts buffish, diffusely streaked, with wing-coverts slightly darker than flight feathers, and undertail barred; head pattern very similar to juvenile Hobby, but cheeks more buffish. Differs from juvenile Eleonora's in size, tail-shape, contrast between upperbody and flight feathers (upperparts juvenile Eleonora's very dark, almost uniformly black), less contrast between wing coverts and primary bases (in juvenile Eleonora's marked contrast between dark coverts and pale primary bases), and head pattern (juvenile Eleonora's lacks dark extension on rear end of ear-coverts). Like Eleonora's, breeds late in summer; nestlings are fed with small autumn migrants.
Voice. Very similar to Hobby; display call resembles Kestrel.
Distribution. Scarce to locally relatively common late-summer visitor in NE Africa and Middle East; generally more common than Eleonora's Falcon. Map: see MapIt.
Habitat. Breeds in stony outcrops in desert, and on rocky islands and cliffs in the Red Sea. Nests in holes.
Food. Large insects and small migrant birds, mostly caught in flight. Like Eleonora's Falcon, hunts at dusk and dawn, but usually solitary or in pairs, not in groups like Eleonora's.