A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Milvus migrans
The Black Kite (Milvus migrans) is a medium-sized bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors. Unlike others of the group, Black Kites are opportunistic hunters and are more likely to scavenge. They spend a lot of time soaring and gliding in thermals in search of food. Their angled wing and distinctive forked tail make them easy to identify. - Wikipedia
Spotted at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.
There is one big problem with that. South Africa is the worst example of what I am going to say. The so-called bird authorities there have a listing of Common names which stayed the same for years but in the last 20 or more years they have changed Common names so often that it has become a joke, In the period between 1999 and 2002 they changed nearly 200 common names and many people are not able to keep up with the changes. I know the other countries are not as bad as that but still do change the names quite a lot. Most people tend to stick with the names they grew up with but of course the newcomers will stick to the new names. I agree with using common names as they are used in the countries you live in, or where you saw the bird, or both. In instances like this the important thing is to list in one place, the Description field, all the naming variations for Common names. It is not necessary to enter in that field what is in there at the moment, all that is referenced in the reference section. If people would read the FAQs properly they would see what we require in each field and what we do not want to see, i.e. long-winded descriptions which should be referenced elsewhere. It is very important that only the correct Binomial name is put in the scientific name field as this is the one common link between all spottings so we have to have a standard there. The correct international Binomial name for this bird is still Milvus migrans, because the separation into a full species is not yet internationally recognised, I hope you have read and understand this.
In our part of the world we tend to separate the black and the yellow-billed kites and think of them as different species with a footnote about possible subspecies status.
From a "common name" point of view I would call it a yellow billed kite because that IS what it is commonly referred to as. I am a firm believer that common names should be collected from Jo Public and not prescribed or dictated by academia.
Thanks for the ID help. Spotted this one at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.
You can download the latest version of the Clements Checklist of birds here: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementsche... it is an 8MB excel file. If you do not have excel you can download open office for free and it will run in that.
The Yellow-billed Kite is a sub-species of Black Kite and has the scientific name Milvus migrans aegyptius/parasitus
It´s a kite, notice the forked tail. Cannot say what species, I do not know the birds of Uganda
Spotted on Nov 15, 2012
Submitted on Nov 17, 2012
+3
