Tracking the Great Black Hawk on Bird Count Day

The elusive Virginia Key Great Black Hawk may be spotted again today at the annual National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count. 

The Great Black-Hawk of Virginia Key was seen and reported during the 2004-5 Virginia Key Christmas Bird Count, according to Robin Diaz, who wrote an excellent article on the life and times of this soaring bird that she describes as a “large (hawk) with short broad wings, short tail and long legs. The adult is black, while the juvenile is streaky brownish” usually seen near coastal mangroves. 

The annual bird count has been held since 1900 all around the country and is being held today in Miami Dade County with volunteers coordinated by  Tropical Audubon Society. The results provide statistics that can be used to gauge changes in the environment and the effects on bird populations. 

The statistics are also a window to the environmental deterioration that pollution, loss of habitat and climate change has wrought. 

Virginia Key is rich in bird life, from the 700-acre Bill Sadowski Critical Wildlife Area to the tropical hammock and dunes.  

In March, Tropical Audubon volunteers working with representatives of the Florida Department of Environment Protection (DEP), to document the the birds that forage, roost, nest or even merely fly over the 700-acre wildlife area that includes submerged lands, two spoil islands, intertidal mudflats and bars and tidal swamp forests along Virginia Key’s northwest shoreline. That  part of Virginia Key contains the largest remaining portion of unaltered mangrove forest and unaltered, submerged lands. 

On that trip, ospreys, great blue herons, snowy egret, ibis, cormorants, anhingas and brown pelicans were among the many species found. A look was also taken underwater to document the health of the seagrasses - including Johnson’s seagrass (Halophila johnsonii), which the federal government lists as a threatened species.


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