Tropical Audubon Society

South Florida’s Voice of Conservation

Try to get photos, I can post them here if you get one. Here is my e-mail:

birderlm@bellsouth.net

Larry Manfredi

As Larry said, try to get photos. Whatever the bird may be he'll be able to identify it.
In the meantime, you might also try searching "short tailed hawk dark morph" and look at some of those images to see if that's a good match for your hawk. We see them fairly regularly in north Broward.

Here is a link to Cornell's Neotropical Birds. The Great Black Hawk has a wide white band on its tail. Depending on the race, the band will be at the base of the tail or lower. The wings look paddle-shaped and broad when it flies.

http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/portal/species/overview?p_p_spp=125716

I saw a dark morph Short-tailed Hawk in Margate last week.

I'm not much of photographer but I might sometime get a picture on my cell phone. I just never know when I might see the hawk. This is a large black hawk and a bit larger than the red-shouldered hawks that we see frequently here.

I saw the large black hawk again this afternoon. I did not get a photo unfortuately. I only ever see the bird in flight.

I took a good hard look and here is my best description:

The hawk is very broad winged. It has a little fringe

of white on the primary wing feather tips. I have not noticed any white on the tail feathers or on the body. The bird appears mostly very dark in color (black). It is not a vulture, as it is not large enough to be that. It is a large hawk and definitely larger than other hawks in this area, however. It is only seen as a solitary bird.

Are you sure you are not seeing a black vulture? They are smaller than turkey vultures. They are also all black with white primary tips

I have looked at dozens of photos of the black vulture in flight and my bird does not match any of them. The bird that I saw has only a little white on the tips of the primary feathers along the whole wing. Maybe my hawk is a morph of some species.