FIRST RECORDS OF THE SHORT-TAILED HAWK AND GRAY HAWK FOR THE BAJA CALIFORNIA PENINSULA

During late October and early November 2011, I visited the tip of the Baja California Peninsula, from La Paz to San Jose del Cabo, all of which lies within the biogeographic region known as the Cape District, encompassing habitats ranging from desert in the lowlands to thorn forest in foothills and pine–oak woodlands on higher slopes [Woolley 2001]. This portion of the Cape District, at the tip of the world’s second-longest peninsula oriented north–south, is also well known for concentrating vagrant birds. On 30 October 2010, I was walking through a patch of thorn forest at Cadueno, Baja California Sur, when I heard the scold notes of a Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana). I quickly located the source of the tanager’s agitation: an adult Gray Hawk (Buteo platypterus) perched on dead branches just below the canopy. The hawk, no farther from me than 20 m, remained for at least a minute before taking flight (Figure 1). Efforts to relocate it the next day failed. On 3 November 2010, approximately 90 minutes before sunset, I was observing the upper lip of the canyon near the road to San Antonio de la Sierra, Baja California Sur. This arroyo is approximately 22.5 km south of Mexico Highway 1, at an elevation of approximately 700 m. A small hawk came into view high above and quickly disappeared into the sun’s glare. Suspecting the bird to be a Broad-winged Hawk (B. platypterus), I drove on the peninsula, I readied my camera. When it reappeared I took more than a dozen photographs. Unfortunately, the bird quickly soared off to the north. Review of the photographs immediately thereafter (Figure 2), however, revealed that the hawk was a light-morph adult Short-tailed Hawk (B. brachyurus).