Status and Occurrence of White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) in British Columbia
By Rick Toochin and Don Cecile
Read the full article with photos here.
Introduction and Distribution
The White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) is an elegant raptor that is found on the West Coast of North America as a breeding species from California, Oregon and recently in southwestern Washington State (Wahl et al. 2005). It is a common breeder in southern Texas with a small breeding population established in southern Florida (since at least 1986 in western Broward and south Dade County), and scattered reports elsewhere along the peninsula and in the eastern panhandle (Robertson and Woolfenden 1992). The last historical nest found in Florida was in 1910, but the population has slowly increased since the 1960s (Robertson and Woolfenden 1992, Stevenson and Anderson 1994). It is unclear if the current breeding population was derived from a former population or derived from birds that moved east from western states (Dunk 1995). In Mexico, the White-tailed Kite breeds southward from the southern Sonora along the coast through Jalisco and central Michoacán (Dunk 1995). It is also found along the west coast from central Guerrero, south through Chiapas and into Guatemala; from central Chihuahua south through eastern Durango to Querétaro; from Tamaulipas south along the east coast to Campeche (Howell and Webb 2010). It also breeds in the north eastern region of Baja California Norte (Howell and Webb 2010). In recent years, the White-tailed Kite has been recorded increasingly as a year-round resident throughout the western Baja California Sur, except for the southern Cape region (Rodriguez-Estrella et al. 1995). In Mexico, the White-tailed Kite is not found in pine-oak forests and desert habitats (Dunk 1995). It breeds along both coasts of Guatemala and along coastal El Salvador and Honduras (Monroe 1968, Howell and Webb 2010), as well as throughout the lowlands of Costa Rica (Stiles and Skutch 1989); in Panama on the Pacific slope from Chiriquí to Eastern Panama Province (rarely to Daríen province), and on the Caribbean slope where it is recorded mainly from the Canal area and Colón Province (Ridgely and Gwynne 1989).
The White-tailed Kite also breeds throughout South America; in Colombia from the Cauca Valley and eastern llanos, east through Venezuela and Guyana to Surinam; central and eastern Brazil, south to Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina, south to Mendoze and Buenos Aires (Dunk 1995). It is also found in Chile from Atacama to Valdivia (Dunk 1995). It is considered casual in Trinidad (Blake 1977).
Sightings of breeding kites have increased throughout the western and southwestern United States (Gatz et al. 1988), but there are no sizable populations in these areas. The species is a very rare summer resident in south eastern Oklahoma and is a casual visitor in the northeast, south-central, and the southwest regions of the state (Baumgartner and Baumgartner 1992). There have been recent breeding attempts in Arizona, Louisiana, and Mississippi (Palmer 1988). The White-tailed Kite is recorded casually during the spring and summer in many states north to Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and east to New York and Massachusetts (Palmer 1988).
In Canada, all records are from British Columbia with 43 records mostly from the coastal regions, but a recent wave of photo-documented records from the interior of the Province are exceptional and intriguing (Campbell et al. 2001, Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1).
Although resident throughout most of its breeding range, the White-tailed Kite disperses during the nonbreeding season, resulting in some range expansion in winter months. In California, the White-tailed Kite is observed sporadically throughout most of the state in the winter (Small 1994). The species is a very uncommon to fairly common winter visitor in late August through April to western Oregon, particularly along the coast and in the interior valleys of the Rogue, Umpqua, Willamette Valleys, but is rare east of the Cascades Mountains (Henny and Annear 1978, Gilligan et al. 1994). The White-tailed Kite was a rare winter visitor to the western edge of the Great Basin during the 1970s, and was observed near Reno, and the Pyramid and Honey Lake areas of Nevada, but recent records are lacking from this area (Ryser 1985).
Occurrence and Documentation
The White-tailed Kite is a recent addition to the British Columbia checklist with the first confirmed sighting coming from the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary on April 26, 1990 (Smith and Ireland 1992, Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1). Since that first observation, this species is recorded almost annually in the Lower Mainland with records occurring every two to three years in a five year period. There are now 9 records for Vancouver Island and very recent photographed records for the interior region of the Province. These records fit well with the species rapid expansion northward along the coast from Oregon into Washington State throughout the 1970-1990s.
The best period to look for the White-tailed Kite in British Columbia, based on current records, is from April to June with the peak period of occurrences in the third week of April (Toochin et al. 2014, see Table 1 & 2). The White-tailed Kite is a species that prefers open agricultural areas that contains suitable trees or snags on which they perch. The first reported observations of the White-tailed Kite in Washington State were in Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on July 10, 1975 (Harrington-Tweit 1980). By 1985, there were a few mated pairs of the White-tailed Kite in the Grays Harbour region (Anderson and Batchelder 1990). The breeding record for the State was found near the town of Raymond in 1988 (Anderson and Batchelder 1990). Since that time, the White-tailed Kite has slowly pushed its breeding range in Washington, north to Thurston County and is now a resident found year round in the State (Wahl et al. 2005). As the species slowly pushes north towards British Columbia, it is highly possible that a nesting pair of White-tailed Kites could be found in the Lower Mainland or in the Fraser Valley in the coming decades. Given the frequency of records over the past decade, the White-tailed Kite should be looked for by observers every year in southwestern British Columbia. As with all rare bird species, all occurrences should be photographed and properly documented.
