Only a few hundred miles south of Key West, Cuba's most endangered bird of prey, the critically endangered subspecies of Hook-billed Kite (Chondroierax uncinatus wilsonii) was discovered in the Humbolt Park area of Guantanamo Province in eastern Cuba.
Photograph, one of the few of this taxon, is courtesy of Nils Navarro Pacheco.
ABA's Birders' Exchange program supplied the camera and lens that enabled Nils Navarro Pacheco and Ernesto Reyes to document their sighting. From Field Guide to the Birds of Cuba, Garrido and Kirkconnell, Clements Checklist of the Birds of World, Sixth Edition, and Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 2, we learn how little is known about this taxon. Some authors believe "Cuban Kite" is a valid species, separate from Hook-billed Kite, although the A.O.U. Check-list of North American Birds, Seventh Edition, treats it as a subspecies of Hook-billed Kite. Almost no information is known about "Cuban Kite" natural history, and it's range is thought to now only include eastern Cuba, with only about 250 pairs in existence. In a 30-year period before the year, 2000, only three sightings of "Cuban Kite" had been confirmed.