Ictinia plumbea
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
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 |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Plumbeous Kite sighting in Sierra de la Macarena National Park on a given day, based on 111 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 105th most-seen of the 418 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Plumbeous Kite in Sierra de la Macarena National Park on a given day, against under 5% in April and July–October, the lowest months. That is one of Sierra de la Macarena National Park's driest months, with about 95 mm of rain against 430 mm in May.
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.
14th of 48
Of the 48 parks where we can rate Plumbeous Kite sightings, Sierra de la Macarena National Park ranks 14th at about 10%. The best odds are in Manu National Park (Peru, about 30%), Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve (Ecuador, about 30%) and Yasuní National Park (Ecuador, about 20%).
Same family: Accipitridae
The closest relatives of the Plumbeous Kite that you can see in Sierra de la Macarena National Park (family Accipitridae, Hawks, Eagles, and Kites) are Roadside Hawk (about 50%), Harpy Eagle (about 20%) and American Swallow-tailed Kite (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Plumbeous Kite is recorded against all the birds logged in Sierra de la Macarena National Park (111 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.
