Cuban Black-Hawk - Georgia

On 10 April, Tim Banks, the gardens operation manager of Ida Cason Callaway's Fondation's Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, e-mailed Peeps saying he photographed a dark raptor perched for two hours on a bird feeder post in the Gardens' backyard habitat exhibit. Raptors are kept and trained near the facility.  Not a birder himself, Tim inquired with the Callaway raptor staff who reported the bird as being a possible Great Black-Hawk.  Analysis of photographs suggests the bird is a Cuban Black-Hawk Buteogallus gundlachii. The remaining question is the bird's provenance. Any comments about the identification of this bird are welcome.  Photos courtesy Tim Banks.

 

In the Forty-Eighth Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds, in The Auk, 124(3):1109-1115, 2007, Cuban Black-Hawk, formerly a subspecies of Common Black-Hawk, was split as a separate species based on difference in size, voice, plumage coloration and pattern. Cuban Black-Hawk is a mangrove specialist and endemic to coastal Cuba, the Isle of Pines, and several of the larger cays in the Cuban Archipelago (Field Guide to the Birds of Cuba, Garrido and Kirkconnell). While Common Black-Hawk is a slate-gray to blackish bird, Cuban Black-Hawk is chocolate brown. The most distinctive character differentiation is undersides of primaries and some secondaries forming a white patch, as compared to a patch grayish-brown in Common Black-Hawk. The most common alarm call in Cuban Black-Hawk consists of 3-4 notes which differs from Common Black-Hawk's 9-24 note call (Taxonomic status and biology of the Cuban Black-Hawk Buteogallus anthracinus gundlachii, Wiley and Garrido in J. Raptor Res. 39(4):351-364.

The question still remaining is the origin of this bird and will it be added to the ABA Checklist.  Since Cuba is part of the A.O.U. area, Cuban Black-Hawk is already on the A.O.U. Check-list.

Comments

[Agnes S.]

Do you think that the Cuban Blackhawk should be considered it's own species, separate from common blackhawks?

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[R McGregor]

Is the ID of this bird certain? It looks much more like a juvenile Bateleur (Terathopius ecaudatus) to me. The very short tail, bare parts coloration and uniform brown underparts look awfully like juv Bateleur to me.