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Black-shouldered Kite

Elanus axillaris · Family Accipitridae

Elanus axillaris

Family Accipitridae

Order
Accipitriformes
Family
Accipitridae
GBIF occurrence records
265,139
Countries and territories with records
7
Black-shouldered Kite
Frankzed from Melbourne, Australia · Elanus axillaris -Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia-8.jpg · CC BY 2.0 · Frankzed from Melbourne, Australia · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons · Recordings may be trimmed and re-encoded; photos are cropped and resized.

About this species

This species has 265,139 occurrence records from 7 countries and territories (GBIF, 21 October 2026). Australia accounts for 99.8% of the records; no other country or territory reaches 1%. In Australia, this species accounts for 0.24% of all bird records in GBIF.

The scientific name Elanus axillaris combines the genus name Elanus with the species epithet axillaris. The Warbla app catalog lists 4 species of the genus Elanus; apart from this one, those with the most GBIF records are Elanus caeruleus, Elanus leucurus and Elanus scriptus.

The catalog has GBIF record counts for 195 species of the family Accipitridae. This species ranks 37th among them; the family’s most-recorded species is Buteo jamaicensis. Its record count is 64.5% of the family average (411,236). The family Accipitridae belongs to the order Accipitriformes, which has 213 species in the Warbla app catalog.

More birds in the family Accipitridae

Credits & data sources