稀有的猛禽混血儿很可能是绝望的产物，而不是爱情

稀有的猛禽混血儿很可能是绝望的产物，而不是爱情

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a lone common black hawk in no possession of a child, must be in want of a mate, no matter their genus… So begins the tale of one common black hawk’s foray with a red-shouldered hawk, despite their genetic differences. Yet this story does not end in tragedy, for this intergeneric affair has resulted in the natural production of an extremely rare hybrid, an event recorded only a handful of times in wild hawks and eagles.

这是一个举世公认的真理:一只没有孩子的普通黑鹰，一定想找个伴侣，无论他们是哪一种鸟……于是，一只普通黑鹰与一只红肩鹰的故事就这样开始了，尽管它们的基因不同。然而，这个故事并没有以悲剧告终，因为这种属间事件导致了一种极其罕见的混血儿的自然繁殖，这种情况在野生鹰和老鹰身上只记录了几次。

The unconventional tale began in 2005, when Stan Moore, a raptor bander at Fairfax Raptor Research, noticed an unusual sight in the Laguna de Santa Rosa Wetlands Complex in Sonoma County, California: a common black hawk (Buteogallus anthracinus). More commonly found in corridors of gallery forests along flowing streams from the Southwestern United States through to South America, the common black hawk has only been spotted 16 times over a period of 33 years in California.

这个非传统的故事开始于2005年，费尔法克斯猛禽研究中心的猛禽斑手斯坦·摩尔在加利福尼亚索诺玛县的拉古纳德圣罗莎湿地发现了一个不寻常的景象:一只普通的黑鹰(Buteogallus anthracinus)。在从美国西南部到南美洲的流动的溪流中，更常见的是在画廊森林的走廊里，常见的黑鹰在加州33年的时间里只被发现过16次。

Katy Pallister

Although a temporary resident for the first two years, the common black hawk Moore had spotted started to hold a permanent territory from April 2008. During this time the hawk, later determined as female after Moore tagged her in 2009, had already begun to engage in mating behaviors, enticing the native red-shouldered hawks (Buteo lineatus) into her territory. But she did not receive a warm reception, having been harassed by a resident pair of red-shouldered hawks during several of her aerial courtship displays.

虽然头两年是临时居民，但摩尔发现的普通黑鹰从2008年4月开始拥有永久领地。在这段时间里，这只2009年被摩尔标记为雌性的鹰已经开始进行交配活动，引诱本地红肩鹰(Buteo lineatus)进入她的领地。但她并没有受到热情的接待，在她的几次空中求爱表演中，一对当地的红肩鹰对她进行了骚扰。

The red-shouldered Hawks breed across North America. Dirk M. de Boer/Shutterstock

Their refusal of her advances is not wholly surprising, given that the two species of hawks belong to entirely different genera, only sharing common ancestry at the “family” level. Therefore, the black hawk’s uniform dark plumage would be seen as a world away from the red hawk’s rusty and white speckled front. The female black hawk’s superior size may also have been on the male red hawk’s mind, as the size contrast would have posed a significant threat to them.

他们拒绝她的求爱并不完全令人惊讶，因为这两种鹰属于完全不同的属，只是在“家族”层面上有共同的祖先。因此，黑鹰统一的黑色羽毛将被视为一个世界远离红鹰生锈和白色斑点的前面。雌黑鹰的优越尺寸可能也在雄红鹰的脑海中，因为尺寸的对比会对它们构成重大的威胁。

So what was it that attracted the female black hawk to the male red hawk in the first place? Well, according to a paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Raptor Research, the answer is probably not love but in fact desperation.

那么到底是什么吸引了雌黑鹰和雄红鹰呢?根据今年早些时候发表在《猛禽研究杂志》上的一篇论文，答案可能不是爱，而是绝望。

Hubbs’ principle, referred to as the “desperation hypothesis,” is one way in which hybridization can be explained. This is when “a rare individual fails to find a conspecific mate and settles on a mate of a common species,” a rarity caused, for example, by vagrancy, endangerment, or natural range expansion, according to the authors.

哈布斯的原理，被称为“绝望假说”，是解释杂交的一种方法。这是指“一个罕见的个体未能找到一个同族伴侣，而选择了一个普通物种的伴侣”，根据作者的说法，这种罕见是由流浪、濒危或自然范围扩大等原因造成的。

The female black hawk engaged with a male red hawk in aerial courtship (a- photo by N. Dunlop) and simultaneously tending to a nest (b- photo by S.Moore). Moore and Coulson, 2020 (Journal of Raptor Research)

Therefore, away from her species, the vagrant black hawk in western California had to change up her type in order to mate, and the red-shouldered hawks were the most abundant species available, although their dietary overlap and strong associations with aquatic habitats may have helped them along.

因此，远离她的物种，在西加利福尼亚的流浪黑鹰不得不改变她的类型为了交配，和红肩鹰是最丰富的物种，虽然他们的饮食重叠和与水生栖息地的强烈联系可能有助于他们。

After several years of mating behavior, a suspected hybrid juvenile was sighted in 2012. Ramping up their observations, the researchers recorded a total of three courtship flights, two copulations, and two simultaneous nest attendances between the female black hawk and a male red hawk, which ultimately resulted in another hybrid birth in 2014.

经过几年的交配行为，2012年发现了一只疑似杂交幼崽。根据他们的观察，研究人员总共记录了三次求爱飞行、两次交配以及雌黑鹰和雄红鹰同时筑巢的次数，这最终导致了2014年的另一次杂交。

Photos (a-c) shows the common black hawk x red-shouldered hawk hybrid at 56 days old, and photo (d) at 46 days old. (Photos by S. Moore) Moore and Coulson, 2020 (Journal of Raptor Research)

Marrying the two species’ appearance, the offspring was large and had a dark plumage, similar to its mother, and had a hooked bill and patches of cream and dark brown, like its father. Although the offspring’s appearance and the behavior between the two hawks point to a hybrid, a genetic analysis of the juvenile’s blood sample would confirm it.

与这两个物种的外貌相结合，后代体型庞大，有着与母亲相似的深色羽毛，有着钩状的喙，和父亲一样，身上有几块奶油色和深褐色的斑点。尽管这只幼鹰的外表和两只鹰之间的行为表明它是杂交后代，但对这只幼鹰血液样本的遗传分析可以证实这一点。

But what of the adult hawks’ fate? Reports and photographs from 2019 show the pair engaged in aerial courtship displays. The less cynical amongst us may wonder that what perhaps was once an act of desperation has turned into love after all.

但是成年鹰的命运如何呢?2019年的报道和照片显示，这对情侣进行了空中求爱表演。我们中那些不那么愤世嫉俗的人可能会想，也许曾经的绝望行为最终变成了爱。