coverts are rich rufous. The flight feathers from below are white, tipped with black to form a dark trailing edge to the wing. The juvenile augur buzzard is mainly brown above and rufous brown below and on the tail. It can be confused with wintering steppe buzzard, but the augur is considerably larger and bulkier with broader wings and a heavier flight style and an unbarred undertail. Although not as dark as the adult on the back and upperwing coverts, it is usually noticeably darker than a juvenile steppe buzzard. The adult augur buzzard has white underparts and underwings. The female has black on the lower throat. Juveniles are brown above and buff below, the underparts later becoming white. Juveniles are similar to juvenile jackal buzzards but are generally much paler below with bolder carpal patches and more clearly barred secondaries and tail. There is a melanistic form of augur buzzard, all black, except for grey and white flight feathers that are barred black and contrast strongly with the black center and a chestnut tail. About 10% of birds are melanistic, but the proportion rises in forested areas with high rainfall to as much as 50% in some areas. A somewhat similar melanistic morph of jackal buzzard is also known and these birds can very hard to distinguish, perhaps only told apart by the stronger barring on the melanistic augur pale flight feathers. Dark morph long-legged buzzards may also be confused for melanistic augur buzzards but are clearly more slender in the wing, less blackish on the body and lack the bold rufous tail. Range and habitat The augur buzzard is found in eastern and southwestern Africa. Despite its erratic-seeming distribution, it is often common in its range. The augur buzzard is found from eastern Sudan and Ethiopia (also northern Somalia, inhabited by the subspecies B. a. archeri) down through the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, parts of Tanzania into Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, western Angola and west-central Namibia. Despite its wide range in southern Africa it appears to only occur in South Africa as a vagrant. The augur buzzard is found in open or light wooded upland areas but can also range into lowland deserts at sea level (such as in Namibia) and some more mountainous, precipitous areas of eastern Africa. They seem to prefer to hunt in elevated savanna grasslands, high moorland, cropland