White-tailed kite
Elanus leucurus
Identification Tips:
- Sexes similar
- Medium-sized, graceful, long-winged hawk
- Pointed wings
- Long, squared-off tail
- Short, dark, hooked beak
- Red eye
- Black upperwing coverts appear as black shoulder at rest
- Often hovers and soars with wings held in a dihedral
Adult:
- White head, chin, throat, chest, belly and underwing coverts
- White underwing with primaries darkening on outer wing
- Small black wrist mark on underprimary coverts
- White tail
- Pale gray back and upperwing with flight feathers darkening towards outer wing
Immature:
- Brown head, nape and back
- White face
- Brown streaks on white breast
- Dark upperwing with pale tips to the coverts
- Dark band at tip of white tail
Similar species:
Gulls and terns are similar in coloration but lack black shoulder and wrist
marks and have a different bill shape. Mississippi Kite has a similar shape,
but is much darker in all plumages, never having a white breast, white tail, or
the black shoulder or wrist marks of the White-tailed Kite.