Bird of the Week
There’s no mistaking this agile flyer with its deeply forked tail, long pointed wings and stark black and white plumage.
Swallow-tailed Kites are amazingly graceful in flight. They are so maneuverable that they can grab a dragonfly in mid-air or snatch a lizard hiding in a treetop without so much as missing a single wing beat! They use their tails much like a ship’s rudder to veer sharply or circle and can turn it close to 90º.
This member of the raptor family is unusually gregarious with pairs nesting in close proximity. Community roosts often have hundreds of kites and they migrate in huge numbers, often in the thousands.
In the U.S. Swallow-tailed Kites breed along the southeastern coast from South Carolina to Florida as well as the coasts of Louisiana and Texas. They winter in South America. The Swallow-tailed Kite prefers large tracts of wetland forests which accommodate the birds nesting habits.
You will usually see this bird in flight high above the trees but it’s rarely heard. Swallow-tailed Kites are easy to identify visually with their four-foot wingspan, white body, black wings and distinctive vee-shaped tail.
Swallow-tailed Kite’s primary food is flying insects such as dragonflies, crickets, termites, ants and cicadas, which they capture and consume on the wing. But they also eat lizards, small snakes, tree frogs, small mammals and fruit. They even drink on the wing skimming the water’s surface!
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Swallow-tailed Kites have many names, including “Forked-tailed Kite”, “Swallow Hawk,” “Forked-tail Hawk, “Wasp Hawk” and”Snake Hawk.” One of its calls is a high-pitched, whistled klee-klee-klee. Its nests are lined with Spanish moss or other soft vegetation. Once hatched their young spend around six weeks in the nest. Habitat loss has had a major impact on their populations. Once nesting in twenty-one states, they now only breed in seven. They nest very high in the “V” of pine trees, often as high as 100 feet. It’s the largest kite in America. A group of kites is called a “wake”. Both males and females incubate and feed the chicks. Swallow-tailed Kites are very vocal when alarmed or when clashing with other members of their own species. Click here to watch a gathering of Swallow-tailed Kites at a roost site. Click here to watch Swallow-tailed Kites soaring and calling.
Swallow-tailed Kite Fun Facts
