Red kite

The red kite (Milvus milvus) is a medium-large bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as eagles, buzzards, and harriers. The species currently breeds only in Europe, though it formerly also bred in west Asia and northwest Africa. Historically, it was only resident in the milder parts of its range in western Europe and northwestern Africa, whereas all or most red kites in northern mainland Europe wintered to the south and west, some also reaching western Asia, but an increasing number of northern birds now remain in that region year-round. Vagrants have reached north to Finland and south to Israel, Libya and Gambia. The red kite was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Falco milvus. The word milvus was the Latin name for the bird. In 1799 the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède moved the species to the genus Milvus creating the tautonym. Two subspecies are recognised: M. m. milvus (Linnaeus, 1758) – Europe and northwest Africa to the Middle East M. m. fasciicauda Hartert, 1914 – Cape Verde Islands The subspecies M. m. fasciicauda is almost certainly extinct. The genus Milvus contains two other species: the black kite (M. migrans) and the yellow-billed kite (M. aegyptius). The red kite has been known to successfully hybridize with the black kite in captivity where both species were kept together, and in the wild on the Cape Verde Islands and infrequently in other places. The red kites on the Cape Verde Islands are (or rather were) quite distinct in morphology, being somewhat intermediate with black kites. The question whether the Cape Verde kite should be considered a distinct species (Milvus fasciicauda) or a red kite subspecies has not been settled. A mitochondrial DNA study on museum specimens suggested that Cape Verde birds did not form a monophyletic lineage among or next to red kites.