White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus)
About the White-tailed Kite
The white-tailed kite (Elanus leucurus) is a small raptor found in South America and parts of western North America. It replaces the related Old World black-winged kite in its native range. The white-tailed kite was described in 1818 by French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot under the binomial name Milvus leucurus, with the type locality as Paraguay. It is now one of four species in the genus Elanus, which was introduced in 1809 by French zoologist Jules-César Savigny. The word Elanus is from Ancient Greek elanos for a "kite". The specific epithet leucurus is from the Ancient Greek leukouros for "white-tailed": leukos is "white" and oura is "tail".
No audio on this page yet
We only publish recordings we may use commercially, because this site is supported by ads. xeno-canto lists 60 recordings for this species: 3 CC BY-NC-SA. None of them permits commercial use, so there is no player here — the page is kept as a profile so the bird is not missing from the guide.
As soon as someone uploads a freely licensed recording, we mirror it and the player appears here.
Listed as recorded in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador in the xeno-canto catalogue.
Related species you can hear
- Black-winged KiteElanus caeruleusrecording
This species has no recording here yet — these relatives do, so you can hear what the family sounds like.