![]() ![]() Mississippi Kite Spots a Bug Mississippi Kite Grabs the Bug with his Talons Mississippi Kite Mid-Air Snack Here a kite spots an insect, grabs it in his talons, and then eats it on the wing. The Mississippi Kites, like their swallow-tailed comrades, also eat on the wing. He’s easy to confuse with a hawk at a distance due to the streaking in his tail. The photo below is a juvenile Mississippi Kite. He’s smaller than a Swallow-tailed cousin, and he tends to fly higher, which is particularly annoying to photographers. The photo above is an adult Mississippi Kite. These beautiful black-and-white raptors have a cousin, the Mississippi Kite, who is pretty rare in Florida but can be found…you guessed it…at the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive. They are quite the acrobats, and fun to watch.In my last post I wrote about the Swallow-tailed Kites and their pre-migratory gathering over insect-covered fields. Take a few minutes and enjoy these graceful birds while they are still here. They migrate in large flocks through Mexico and Central America, then along the Amazonian front of the Andes Mountains, to areas that have not been well documented in the south-central portion of the South American continent. Over the next two to three weeks, the fledglings will make short flights near the nest, practicing how to fly and hunt on their own, and the parents will continue to feed them.īy the end of August, the youngsters will be fairly independent, and by mid-September the Mississippi kites will all start their long south-bound trek. They will perch near the nest and call incessantly for their parents to feed them. The juvenile birds are covered with brown streaks, with a striped tail. Another week later, the youngsters are fully grown and they start to fly.Ĭurrently, this year’s chicks are nearing the branching stage. About 25 days after they hatch, the chicks start climbing out of the nest onto nearby limbs. As the chicks grow, the adults leave the nest unattended for longer periods of time, and both spend more time hunting to feed their young. The adults trade duties several times each day. While one parent broods the chicks, the other hunts and brings food to the nest. For the first 10 days, the hatchlings are tended closely by both sexes. Both parents share incubation responsibilities over the next 30 days. They have already paired up by the time they arrive, and commence establishing territory and nest building. The locally- nesting kites appear in April. The kites spend the winter in South America, and return to the US in the spring. Their stick nests are difficult to find, as they are usually hidden in dense foliage high in the canopy of large trees. They have readily adapted to human settlement, and often build nests in wooded neighborhoods, golf courses and parks. Mississippi kites nest along riparian corridors in the southeastern United States, including a healthy population in southern Brazoria County. They are snatching prey, such as dragonflies, beetles and cicadas, from the air with their talons – often eating them on the wing.Īlthough insects are the main staple in their diet, they also hunt small vertebrates such as frogs, lizards, snakes, rodents, bats and small birds, taking them from trees or the ground. Then you may see them make a sudden dive. They have the ability to glide in circles for long periods of time. The adult has a dark gray back, wings and tail, red eyes, a pale gray belly and a striking white head. ![]() These are Mississippi Kites, raptors that specializes in hunting large insects. You may have noticed sleek, crow-sized birds soaring effortlessly above the treetops in your neighborhood this summer. ![]()
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