Swallow-tailed kite Elanoides forficatus

Identification Tips:

• Length: 21 inches Wingspan: 50 inches
• Sexes similar
• Medium-sized, graceful, long-winged, long-tailed hawk
• Pointed wings
• Short, dark, hooked bill

Adult:

• Long, deeply forked tail
• White head, neck, chest, underwing coverts, belly, and undertail coverts
• Slate gray back and upperwings
• Black tail and flight feathers

Immature:

• Duller than adult with fine streaks on head and breast
• Shorter, less deeply-forked tail than adult

Similar species:

Bold black and white plumage make it unmistakeable.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.