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Plumage is brown with darker streaks. Forked tail is rufous. Whitish-grey head and a white patch towards the tip of underwing. Hooked black bill with yellow cere. Yellow legs, eye and skin around the eye. | Plumage is brown with darker streaks. Forked tail is rufous. Whitish-grey head and a white patch towards the tip of underwing. Hooked black bill with yellow cere. Yellow legs, eye and skin around the eye. | ||
====Similar Species==== | ====Similar Species==== | ||
| − | [[Black Kite]] which has a much less deeply forked tail. | + | [[Black Kite]] which has a much less deeply forked tail that is also shorter: on the sitting bird, primaries reach the end of the tail on Black Kite but reach the base of the fork in the tail on Red Kite. Black Kite has less contrast between dark primary tips and white primary bases. Black Kite shows 6 free primary tips in the extended wing, Red Kite shows five. |
==Distribution== | ==Distribution== | ||
[[Image:361redk18.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Photo by {{user|rayh|rayh}}<br />Mid [[Wales]]]] | [[Image:361redk18.jpg|thumb|350px|right|Photo by {{user|rayh|rayh}}<br />Mid [[Wales]]]] | ||
Revision as of 15:05, 12 July 2010
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This article is incomplete. This article is missing one or more sections. You can help the BirdForum Opus by expanding it. |
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Includes Cape Verde Kite
- Milvus milvus
Identification
Adult
Plumage is brown with darker streaks. Forked tail is rufous. Whitish-grey head and a white patch towards the tip of underwing. Hooked black bill with yellow cere. Yellow legs, eye and skin around the eye.
Similar Species
Black Kite which has a much less deeply forked tail that is also shorter: on the sitting bird, primaries reach the end of the tail on Black Kite but reach the base of the fork in the tail on Red Kite. Black Kite has less contrast between dark primary tips and white primary bases. Black Kite shows 6 free primary tips in the extended wing, Red Kite shows five.
Distribution
Confined to the Western Palearctic the Red Kite is found as a breeding species in Iberia and discontinuously from France east to Belarus and the Ukraine.
In Britain it has long been reduced to a tiny remnant population in central Wales but in recent years extensive release programmes have led to breeding once again in parts of Scotland and England and in 2000 more than 400 pairs breeding or attempting to breed in the UK. This re-introduction has been very successful in the Chilterns, where they have spread south into Berkshire, and are now (2010) a common sight in the skies over Maidenhead
Outside Iberia populations in mainland Europe are scattered with isolated pockets in central and eastern France, eastern Belgium, Luxembourg and southern parts of the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. The range becomes more continuous from Germany and northern Switzerland east to north Poland and Belarus and south to the northwestern shores of the Black Sea. There is a very isolated resident population in the Caucasus. A few small pockets still survive in Slovakia, Hungary and northern Yugoslavia but it is now very rare in South-East Europe. In the Mediterranean area Red Kites breed on the Balearics, Corsica and Sardinia and on Sicily and in the southern third of Italy.
It is now a very rare bird in North-West Africa where small numbers can still be found in northern Morocco and may possibly still breed in Algeria and Tunisia. Rare and decreasing on the Canary Islands and highly endangered and close to extinction in the Cape Verde Islands.
All island populations of Red Kites are mainly resident with some dispersal, mainly of immatures, as are birds from Iberia, Wales, France and southern Europe. Birds from the north and east are more migratory but some tend to stay in the breeding area through the winter, especially in recent decades. Most winter in southern Europe from Spain to Greece or small numbers cross at Gibraltar to winter in North Africa. Red Kites prefer to cross water by the shortest route and appear in small numbers at the major raptor migration watchpoints. The reintroduction programmes in Britain have been highly successful particularly in the Black Isle of Scotland and the Chiltern Hills of England. A bird from the Scottish reintroduction programme has wandered to Iceland and vagrants have been recorded in the Channel Islands.
Taxonomy
Subspecies[1]
- M. m. milvus:
- Locally in western Palearctic region
- M. m. fasciicauda:
Status of Cape Verde Kite fasciicauda
Birds on the Cape Verde Islands have been considered a subspecies of the Red Kite, M. m. fasciicauda, but it has been suggested that they are hybrids between Red and Black Kites or more recently (Sibley & Monroe, 1996) that they represent a full species. However they are classified, Cape Verde Kites are now extremely rare and none were found during a search in spring 2001. However, later the same year four individuals were found on Boavista. The decline of this form is thought in part to be due to the expansion of the Black Kite on the islands. Johnson et al. (2005) found that phylogenetic evidence suggests that Cape Verde Kite specimens collected between 1897 and 1924 belonged to a Red Kite clade that was not restricted to the islands, and that kites collected on the Cape Verde Islands in 2002 were all Black Kites.
Habitat
Favours hilly country with a mixture of mature deciduous woodland and open fields, sometimes near rivers and lakes but less tied to water than the Black Kite.
Behaviour
Breeding
An untidy nest in a tree. Sometimes utilises old Carrion Crow nests.
Diet
Mostly carrion, but will also take rabbits and small birds
Vocalisation
<flashmp3>Milvus milvus (song).mp3</flashmp3>
Listen in an external program
References
- Clements, JF. 2009. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2009. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019.
- Johnson, J.A., Watson, R.T. and Mindell, D.P. (2005) Prioritizing species conservation: does the Cape Verde Kite exist?. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B 272: 1365-1371.
- Collins Pocket Guide to British Birds 1966
- Collins Field Guide 5th Edition
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Red Kite. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 7 May 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Red_Kite
External Links
