Black Kite in Suffolk

[Josh Jones]

Originally Posted by birdertrev

Josh, the Lincolnshire bird was seen again on March 13th this year.

Yes I heard about that report. Was it genuine then? Amazing no one else saw it before/after.

[Alex Lees]

Originally Posted by Josh Jones

Yes I heard about that report. Was it genuine then? Amazing no one else saw it before/after.

It was seen by Alan Ball (from the train), so yes I'd be pretty sure it was a Black Kite, but whether it was the Black(-eared) Kite is still open to question...

Just trying to get to the bottom of the rumours, but are these escaped kites the infamous 'Cape Verde kites' from the Johnson et al. (2005) study (appended below).

Alex

[birdertrev]

I don't think Black Eared was in the picture was it Alex ? surely the Digby bird seen by Alan was the Nocton bird as they are only about 5 miles apart.

Trev

[Alex Lees]

Originally Posted by birdertrev

I don't think Black Eared was in the picture was it Alex ? surely the Digby bird seen by Alan was the Nocton bird as they are only about 5 miles apart.

Trev

Hi Trev

Most likely, just raising the spectre of that taxon given the current climate of Black Kites of unknown provenance, atypical winter occurence and subspecefic identity...

Any more news rumours about the London birds?

cheers

Alex

[Andrew Easton]

In 2002 five putative Cape Verde (Red) Kites Milvus milvus fasciicauda were captured and brought to the National Birds of Prey Centre in Gloucesterhire, with the intention of beginning a captive breeding programme, in collaboration with the Peregrine Fund, to try and prevent the increasing hybridisation with Black Kites from wiping out what some people considered potentially a full species. The Peregrine Fund notes that "once in the hand, the kites were found to share characteristics of both Red Kites and Black Kites with substantial variation between individuals. It was clear from plumage and morphological measurements that none of the kites captured could be reliably identified as either Cape Verde or Black Kites".

Mitochondrial DNA analysis subsequently confirmed them to be either Black Kites or hybrids with maternal Black Kite ancestry, but given the substantial individual variation and mixed species characteristics already noted all were clearly hybrids, and probably of varying generations as such hybrids are fertile and are known to have themselves then bred to produce further generations of hybrids.

The same study, published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2005 Prioritizing species conservation: does the Cape Verde kite exist? carried out similar mtDNA analysis of the original specimens from which Cape Verde (Red) Kite was described which proved them to have a Red Kite ancestry and not to be sufficiently distinct to be elevated to species status. As such the breeding program was abandoned; a pair were kept at the National Birds of Prey Centre (though to date they have not bred) and in 2005 the remaining three birds, a male and two females, were donated to London Zoo as "Black" Kites.

Thanks are due to Keith Beavan, Director of the the National Birds of Prey Centre, for confirming the provenance of the London Zoo birds.

Proving the existence of escaped hybrid Cape Verde Kites in the UK was the relatively easy bit, working out which they are amongst the abundance of records of Black Kites in East Anglia will be somewhat trickier!

[andy22]

On the subject of all these black kites about, I managed to see one in the fakenham area (norfolk) today, i will never know if it was a wild bird or one of the escapes!

cheers andy

[Kit Day]

http://www.billbaston.com/Extremadura_2005-1.html

The top photo on this page looks quite similar to the Boyton bird?

[forktail]

see http://www.birdwatch.plus.com/kites.html

for photos of recent 'Black-eared' and Red kites from east norfolk

[Josh Jones]

Originally Posted by andy22

On the subject of all these black kites about, I managed to see one in the fakenham area (norfolk) today, i will never know if it was a wild bird or one of the escapes!

That's interesting, none were reported in the county yesterday!

[Josh Jones]

Originally Posted by forktail

see http://www.birdwatch.plus.com/kites.html

for photos of recent 'Black-eared' and Red kites from east norfolk

Umm, so why aren't both of those birds Red Kites?