Short-tailed Hawk

Short-tailed Hawks range from southern Arizona and southern Texas to northern Argentina. Disjunct populations breed in southern Florida. I have seen them in Costa Rica and Ecuador, but never during our Florida trips. This hawk is “one of the rarest and least-studied birds in the United States” (Miller and Meyer (2002), Florida Short-tailed Hawks retreat in the winter to the southernmost areas and the Keys. The total population in Florida may only be 500 individuals. To add to the difficulty of finding them, these birds often soar high and are often confused with similarly profiled vultures. Note the slightly upturned primaries in this photo. Short-tailed Hawk tails are not inordinately short.

In January 2018, we observed Short-tailed Hawks on five occasions—once while driving towards Key West at Islamorada, two at the Key West Botanical Garden, and on three different days in the city of Key West. All flew low over wooded areas. One of the city birds circled and did achieve considerable height. 

This photograph is one of the Key West birds, taken on 28 January 2018. Note that this bird is a black morph. They also come in a mostly white morph. I have distant photos of white birds, but the pictures are not particularly in focus. Light and dark morphs interbreed. In the United States, dark birds are more common the light ones. In Latin America, the dark morph is less common the white ones.