Plumbeous Kite
Ictinia plumbea
Slender, long-winged summer migrant to tropical lowlands. Found in humid forest and adjacent semiopen areas with tall trees. Hunts in flight, soaring lazily on long, rather pointed wings and snatches insects with its talons. Dark gray overall (plumbeous means lead-colored) with a slightly paler head. On perched birds, the tips of the wings project well beyond the short tail. In flight, note the orange patches on the underside of the wingtips. Immature has whitish underparts with dark streaking.
Identification
The plumbeous kite is 34–37.5 cm (13.4–14.8 in) in overall length. The male weighs 190–267 g (6.7–9.4 oz), the slightly larger female 232–280 g (8.2–9.9 oz). It has long, pointed wings. Adults are mainly slate-grey, with a paler head and underparts. The short black tail has 2-3 white bands on the undersurface. The eyes are red and the legs are orange. In flight, this kite shows a rufous primary patch. Sexes are similar, but immature birds have white-streaked grey upperparts and dark-streaked whitish underparts. They lack the rufous wing patch. The call of plumbeous kite is a whistled si-see-oo.<p>The plumbeous kite is darker gray overall than the strongly migratory Mississippi kite which has white patches on the secondaries and lacks the rufous patches on the primaries.
Taxonomy
The plumbeous kite was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the eagles, hawks and relatives in the genus Falco and coined the binomial name Falco plumbeus. Gmelin based his description on the "spotted-tailed hawk" that had been described in 1781 by the English ornithologist John Latham from a specimen from Cayenne in a private collection in London. It is now placed with the Mississippi kite in the genus Ictinia that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot. The genus name is from the Ancient Greek iktinos for a kite. The specific epithet plumbea is from Latin plumbeus meaning "leaded", "plumbeous" or "lead-coloured". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
- Scientific name
- Ictinia plumbea
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1788)
- Order
- Accipitriformes
- Family
- Accipitridae
- Genus
- Ictinia
Range and habitat
The plumbeous kite is a bird of lowland forest and savannah. It breeds in the Neotropical realm, from eastern Mexico to Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. It also breeds on Trinidad. Birds in the north and south of the breeding range, including the populations in Central America, Trinidad, Venezuela and Colombia, and southern Argentina and Brazil, are migratory, moving into tropical South America in the northern winter.
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
It is not particularly gregarious, although it is sometimes seen in flocks during migration.<p>The deep stick nest is placed high in a tree, sometimes in a mangrove swamp over water. The clutch is usually a single egg but occasionally two eggs are laid. They are either white of very pale blue and measure about 41 mm × 35 mm (1.6 in × 1.4 in). The eggs are incubated for 32-33 days by both parents. The chicks are covered with white down and are fed by both parents. The young fledge when around a month of age.<p>The plumbeous kite catches insects either in flight or from a perch. It will also occasionally prey on snails, frogs, lizards, bats, birds and snakes.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Gartered Trogon
Trogon caligatus
Relatively small and compact yellow-bellied trogon of tropical lowland forest, mainly in humid areas. Perches at mid to upper levels, often high in canopy. Male has yellow eyering, female has broken white eyering; both sexes have narrow black-and-white barring on underside of tail. Female Gartered has white barring on its closed wings which female Black-headed Trogon lacks. Digs its nest in large arboreal wasp nests. Used to be known as Violaceous Trogon.
Christmas Shearwater
Puffinus nativitatis
A medium-sized shearwater with uniformly dark brown plumage and no contrasting markings. Flies more steadily than most shearwaters and usually flies low over the water. Large numbers nest on most of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. A few pairs nest on Moku Manu Islet off the eastern coast of Oahu. Often seen from boats in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, but rarely on the main islands and rarely from shore. The voice, usually heard only at breeding colonies, is a low moan.
Bearded Bellbird
Procnias averano
Famously loud and distinctive-looking, this large cotinga is one of the iconic species of northern South America. Male is unmistakable with mostly white body, black wings, brown head, and throat full of dangling black wattles that look like the bird threw up a plateful of worms onto itself. Female is much plainer, greenish with faint yellow streaks on the underparts. Female is extremely similar to female White Bellbird; where range overlaps with White Bellbird, Bearded typically occurs at higher elevations. Most often found by the extremely loud and far-carrying “bonk!” call given by the male.
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