Graceful

Swallow-tailed kite in flight (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Swallow-tailed kite in flight (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

We use words like powerful, strong or fierce to describe raptors but this one is different.  The swallow-tailed kite (Elanoides forficatus) is truly graceful.

Named for their beautiful black tails, their flight is so buoyant that they barely flap as they swoop and turn to grab food from the air or the treetops.  They seem to be moving in slow motion and it’s true.  They can fly slowly because their wings and tails are so long.

Swallow-tailed kites live year round in South America but only visit the southern U.S. and Central America to breed. They eat mostly insects which they capture with their feet but supplement their diet with frogs, lizards and nestling birds during the nesting season.

I’ve seen solo kites returning to Florida in late February but my best experience was last month on the Road Scholar birding trip to Costa Rica.  We saw flocks of swallow-tailed kites and they were spectacular!

At a pond near the road to Agua Buena, three kites skimmed the water, drinking and bathing, as graceful as swallows.  They flew so low that we could see the bluish sheen on their backs.  Jon Goodwill photographed them in the flight.

Swallow-tailed kite, bathing (photo by Jon Goodwill)
Swallow-tailed kite, bathing or drinking in flight (photo by Jon Goodwill)
Swallow-tailed kite bathing (photo by Jon Goodwill)
Swallow-tailed kite bathing (photo by Jon Goodwill)
Swallow-tailed kite lifting off from its bath (photo by Jon Goodwill)
Swallow-tailed kite lifting off from its bath (photo by Jon Goodwill)

Later we took a detour … and we were lucky.  Our guide Roger Melendez saw a pair of kites building a nest.  Bert Dudley zoomed his camera for this video of the female arranging the sticks. (You can hear us talking in the background.)

.

 

I would love to show you the beautiful flight of these graceful birds. This video of three man-made kites flown by Ray Bethell is the closest approximation.

Swallow-tailed kites are so graceful.

 

(top photo from Wikimedia Commons, bathing and drinking photos by Jon Goodwill, video by Bert Dudley. Click on the images to see the originals)

6 thoughts on “Graceful

  1. Kate, Dori has laid an egg at the gulf Tower Dori has laid an egg at the Gulf Tower scrape just a few minutes ago.

  2. I wish I had a video to share, but I only took still shots. I saw 4 swallow-tailed kites floating and soaring above me in Southwest Florida on a back country road before dusk. I assume they were migrating. It was so exciting. They reminded me of watching our peregrine falcons.

  3. Thank you for the link to that lovely video of the Ray Bethell. Perfect to watch in these stressful times!

    Now, if I can just get to see some swallow-tail kites next time I’m in Florida….

  4. We are on a big golf course lake here in Naples, FL and our frequent visitors are herons, storks, ibises, egrets, and bald eagles. But my most exciting sighting was last February when we saw two swallow-tailed kites darting and swooping in the back yard. I had to get out the Field Guide to Florida to identify them. Just beautiful !

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *