Pete Nebel and I drove down just southwest of Lexington to find the
Swallow-tailed Kites today. We arrived at 2:30pm at the location marked on this
map: http://goo.gl/maps/zOLsF. The rains had just stopped and we soon spotted ;
one Swallow-tailed Kite. After a few minutes we had all 4 Swallow-tailed Kites
in the air, circling and catching insects and eating "on the fly". They are so
graceful! We watched them for about an hour hoping they would get closer. Just
as one came in sort of close we noticed another interesting bird fly into view
from the north. This new bird appeared to be either another kite or a falcon.
After watching it fly among the Swallow-tailed Kites, we quickly realized that
we had another kite, but not a Swallow-tailed. This bird did not have the
forked swallow tail but instead had a bell-shaped tail. It was definitely
smaller than the Swallow-tailed Kites. Then it flew right over us and we could
pick out plenty of field marks to identify this as an immature (1st-summer)
Mississippi Kite. We watched all 5 kites for another hour foraging in the air
together. It was quite a spectacle! The Mississippi Kite was much more active
in its flight with quicker wing beats and more twists and turns By 5:30pm the
birds had slowly drifted out of sight to the west.
Some photos can be seen here:
http://vehawk.smugmug.com/BirdingTrips-2/2012-08-19-Kites/24860249_BQphQx
Good birding!
Vic
