WatchList Species Account for Antillean Nighthawk (Chordeiles gundlachii)

Qualifies for the list as a Rare Yellow List Species

Photo: Daphne Gemmill

The breeding range of the Antillean Nighthawk is the lower islands of the Florida Keys, and the Bahamas and Greater Antilles eastward to the Virgin Islands. The species has received little study and much about it is unknown, including its winter range. In the Florida Keys, where it is present from late April to September, it sometimes nests in the same areas as the closely-related and very similar Common Nighthawk, of which it was once considered a subspecies. Though the Common Nighthawk is slightly larger, the most reliable way of distinguishing between the two species is by the calls. It may have benefited from human activity in removing vegetation and creating open sandy or gravelly areas it prefers for nesting.

Like the Common Nighthawk it is found in second-growth scrub and dry lowland scrub up to 600 m. It forages over open areas such as sugar-cane fields, pastures, pine barrens, and dry limestone forest and is often seen in groups at dawn and dusk, hawking for insects. It may be vulnerable to pesticides such as those used for mosquito control, but there is no data available on this subject.

There is little information on its population trends and it is not a present a focus of any conservation measures.