Miri, all my searches show that this is not a sneak, but rather a bird:

macagua = laughing falcon

See: http://members.tripod/Thryomanes/BirdSounds1.html and many other pages under a search by Google.

Suerte! Happy translatiing! ;o)

You're both right; it's a snake and a bird. The reference here is to the "macagua terciopelo" or velvet macagua. Since it is a unique species and doesn't seem to have an English name, I would leave it untranslated.

Good luck!
AA

My first answer was somewhat misleading - there are two kinds of macaguas in Venezuela - one brown and one with the appearance of velvet. I would simply translate it as macagua, with addtional explanation that it is a snake, and not the hawk (Latin America) or the tree (Cuba) that you are referring to,
AA

This is accroding to the "dicionario ilustrado Michaelis by Melhoramentos"

!Adios y buena fortuna!

Luis M. Luis