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Ridgway's Hawk | Buteo ridgwayi
Ridgways buizerd | Guaraguaíto
Ridgway's Hawk is the only endemic raptor of Hispaniola and one of the most threatened raptors in the world. It once occurred across the whole island and on offshore islands; today the wild population is largely confined to the limestone country of Los Haitises in north-east Dominican Republic. In the Dominican Republic it is called guaraguaíto.
Voice
Noisy near the nest: a high, sharp but clear kee-yah or klee-yah, often repeated, and a thinner, plaintive weeeeu from begging young and females.
Recording: Ross Gallardy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
36–41 cm, a small, compact buteo. Adults are brown-grey above, with rufous shoulders and bend of the wing. The underparts are grey, finely barred and washed rufous; the thighs are rusty. The tail is black with narrow white bands. Legs and cere are yellow. Males are greyer, females browner and redder below. In flight rufous patches at the base of the primaries are obvious. Juveniles are paler below, cream with grey-brown streaks, and have a less clearly banded tail.
Confusion species
Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis is much larger, with a white breast, a dark belly band and, in adults, a rusty-red tail. Sharp-shinned Hawk Accipiter striatus has shorter, rounded wings, a long tail and a flap-and-glide flight. American Kestrel Falco sparverius is smaller, with pointed wings and black facial stripes.
Habitat
Mainly the karst landscape of Los Haitises: moist forest on and around steep limestone hills, mixed with small-scale farming, pasture and royal palms. Also coastal forest and plantings with scattered tall trees where the species has been released. It hunts from a perch, mainly on lizards, which make up most of the diet, and also on snakes, frogs, small mammals, bats and birds. The nest is high in a tree or in the crown of a royal palm.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Endemic to Hispaniola. The wild population breeds mainly in and around Los Haitises National Park in the Dominican Republic. Reintroduction has created new breeding groups near Punta Cana in the east and in Aniana Vargas National Park. In Haiti there are only a few isolated reports, including from the Cayemites. Formerly also on Gonâve, Île-à-Vache, Tortuga, Beata and Alto Velo.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The best places are the edges of Los Haitises, for example on boat trips from Sabana de la Mar, and the Punta Cana area, where birds perch on palms and tall trees along roads and golf courses. Visits to nests and release sites only with local conservation staff, to avoid disturbance.
Conservation status
Critically Endangered. The population numbers a few hundred birds. Threats are forest loss, shooting by farmers who fear for their chickens, electrocution on power poles and the larvae of the parasitic fly Philornis pici, which kill many nestlings. A conservation programme of nest treatment, reintroduction and outreach has increased numbers.
Scientific name
Buteo ridgwayi | (Cory, 1883)
Cory described the species in 1883 as Rupornis ridgwayi; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Buteo was introduced in 1799 by De Lacépède. Buteo is the Latin word for a buzzard. ridgwayi honours the American ornithologist Robert Ridgway (1850–1929). The specimen the first description was based on came from Santo Domingo (Hispaniola).