Ictinia plumbea
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The plumbeous kite (Ictinia plumbea) is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae that is resident in much of northern South America. It is migratory in the northern part of its range which extends north to Mexico. It feeds on insects which it catches either from a perch or while in flight.
The plumbeous kite was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the eagles, hawks and relatives in the genus Falco and coined the binomial name Falco plumbeus. Gmelin based his description on the "spotted-tailed hawk" that had been described in 1781 by the English ornithologist John Latham from a specimen from Cayenne in a private collection in London. It is now placed with the Mississippi kite in the genus Ictinia that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot. The genus name is from the Ancient Greek iktinos for a kite. The specific epithet plumbea is from Latin plumbeus meaning "leaded", "plumbeous" or "lead-coloured". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
The plumbeous kite is 34–37.5 cm... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | João Pessoa | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Campo Grande | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Santa Cruz de la Sierra | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 4 | Campinas | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Valencia | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 6 | Brasilia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 7 | Goiânia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 9 | Panama City | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 10 | São Paulo | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Plumbeous Kite sighting in Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary on a given day, based on 34 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 202nd most-seen of the 277 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April–May and July
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Plumbeous Kite in Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary on a given day, against under 5% in June and August–March, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Plumbeous Kite sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
27th of 48
Of the 48 parks where we can rate Plumbeous Kite sightings, Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary ranks 27th at under 5%. The best odds are in Manu National Park (Peru, about 30%), Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve (Ecuador, about 30%) and Yasuní National Park (Ecuador, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Plumbeous Kite is recorded against all the birds logged in Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (34 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
