Proposal (699) to South American Classification Committee

Add Milvus migrans to Main List

Effect on South American CL: This proposal adds a species to the Main List.

An individual Black Kite (Milvus migrans) remained for 32 days on the Brazilian Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago (SPSPA) in April/May 2014, disappearing only at the end of the rainy season. It looked healthy for most of this period and was once seen preying on a seabird chick (Nunes et al. 2015).

Its presence in South America and also throughout America as a whole is unprecedented. It is listed by “Check-list of North American Birds” only because of Hawaiian accidental records (A.O.U. 2000).

Nunes et al. (2015) provided photographs, discussed the correctness in identification, and presented hypotheses for the appearance in this archipelago (and also in Fernando de Noronha) of some birds from the Old World.

Literature Cited:

American Ornithologists' Union. 2000. Forty-second supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds. Auk 117:847–858.

Nunes, G. T.; Hoffmann, L. S.; Macena, B. C. L.; Bencke, G. A. & Bugoni, L. 2015. A Black Kite Milvus migrans on the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, Brazil. Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia, 23: 31-35.

J. F. Pacheco, January 2016

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Comments from Stiles: “YES. Although not an easy identification, the morphological details given clearly point to migrans.”

Comments from Jaramillo: “YES. Identification is concrete given the great photographs available in the paper. One can be certain that it is not M. aegyptius, Yellow-billed Kite, which is sometimes lumped with Black Kite. Note that this record is not unprecedented. There is at least one record in the Caribbean that is confirmed from what I recall, and there is a good and photographed record from Dominica, which unfortunately cannot be confirmed due to the loss of the slides. So there are good reports/records from the Caribbean area.”

Comments from Robbins: “YES, for adding Milvus migrans to the SACC list, as the identification seems sound. Also, I was unaware of the additional records that Alvaro mentioned.”