Black-shouldered kite
| Black-shouldered kite | |
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| At Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Accipitriformes |
| Family: | Accipitridae |
| Genus: | Elanus |
| Species: | E. axillaris |
| Binomial name | |
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Elanus axillaris (Latham, 1801) |
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| Range of E. axillaris | |
The black-shouldered kite (Elanus axillaris), Australian black-shouldered kite, or simply Australian kite, is a small raptor found in open habitat throughout Australia. It resembles similar species found in Africa, Eurasia and North America, including the black-winged kite, a species that has in the past also been called "black-shouldered kite".
Measuring 35–38 cm (14–15 in) in length with a wingspan of 80–95 cm (31–37 in), the adult black-shouldered kite is a small and graceful raptor with red eyes. Their primary call is a clear whistle, uttered in flight and while hovering.
Black-shouldered kites form monogamous pairs, breeding between August and January. The birds engage in aerial courtship displays which involve high circling flight and ritualised feeding mid-air. Three or four eggs are laid and incubated for around thirty days. Chicks are fully fledged within five weeks of hatching and can hunt for mice within a week of leaving the nest. Juveniles disperse widely from the home territory.
The black-shouldered kite was first described by English ornithologist John Latham in 1801, as Falco axillaris. Its specific name is derived from the Latin axilla, meaning "armpit".
The name "black-shouldered kite" was formerly used for a Eurasian and African species, Elanus caeruleus, with the Australian species, Elanus axillaris, and the North American species, the white-tailed kite Elanus leucurus, treated as subspecies of this. These three Elanus species have comparable plumage patterns and sizes, however, they are now regarded as distinct, and the name black-winged kite is used for E. caeruleus. Modern references to the black-shouldered kite should therefore unambiguously mean the Australian species, E. axillaris. The Australian black-shouldered kite was formerly called E. notatus, but it was not clear that the name applied to this species alone.
In 1851, British zoologist Edward Blyth described Elaninae, the "smooth clawed kites" as a formal subfamily of Accipitridae. However, they are also grouped in Accipitrinae, the broader subfamily of hawks and eagles described by French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816.
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