Black Falcon

The Black Falcon inhabits the arid and semi-arid interior of Australia, favoring open plains, sparse woodland, and watercourses in the outback. It is uniformly dark sooty-brown, among the darkest of the world's falcons, and is generally uncommon and thinly distributed, making sightings and feather finds relatively rare.

Its long, pointed wings give it a powerful, fast flight profile more similar to the Peregrine Falcon than the broader-winged Brown Falcon with which it shares range.

IUCN status: Least Concern, though naturally uncommon and sparsely distributed.

Recognizing Black Falcon feathers

• Flight feathers: Long and pointed, dark sooty-brown with little contrasting pattern.
• Tail feathers: Dark brown, largely unbarred or with only very faint banding.
• Body feathers: Uniformly dark sooty-brown across back, breast, and belly, sometimes with a slightly paler throat.
• Shaft color: Dark brown to blackish.
• Compared to similar species: Darker and more uniform than the variable Brown Falcon, with narrower, more pointed wings; distinguished from dark-morph Brown Falcon feathers mainly by its more streamlined flight-feather shape and generally larger size.

Adults are almost uniformly dark sooty-brown to blackish-brown over the whole body, sometimes with a slightly paler chin or throat, lacking strong barring or streaking elsewhere. Juveniles are similarly dark, sometimes even blacker than adults, with plumage maturing gradually with little dramatic change.

Restricted mainly to arid and semi-arid interior Australia, including open plains, sparse woodland, and inland watercourses. Resident but often nomadic, tracking prey abundance across its dry-country range.

Hunts birds and large insects in fast, powerful flight, sometimes taking prey from other raptors. Nests in old stick nests of other birds, typically in isolated trees along inland watercourses. Calls include harsh, repeated cackling notes. A long, uniformly dark sooty-brown flight feather found in Australia's arid interior, distinctly more pointed than a Brown Falcon's, may belong to this uncommon species.