White-tailed Kite /

The White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) is an elanid kite of genus Elanus found in western North America and parts of South America. Their coloration is gull-like, but their shape and flight falcon-like, with a rounded tail. Mainly white underneath, they have black wingtips and shoulders. For some recent decades, it united with the Black-winged Kite of Europe and Africa in Elanus caeruleus, and collectively called "Black-shouldered Kite". More recently it was argued that the White-tailed Kite differed from the Old World species in size, shape, plumage, and behavior, and that these differences were sufficient to warrant specific status. This argument was accepted by the American Ornithologists' Union, so the White-tailed Kite has its original name back. Meanwhile, the Old World E. caeruleus is again called Black-winged Kite, while the name Black-shouldered Kite is now reserved for an Australian species, Elanus axillaris, which had also been lumped into E. caeruleus but now regarded as separate again. The White-tailed Kite was rendered almost extinct in California in the 1930s and 1940s by shooting and egg-collecting, but they are now common again. Their distribution is patchy,