17 August 2025
On Friday morning 15 August Michele Beresh made her daily stop at Palmer Park to check on the swallow-tailed kite she first saw at Donora on 8 August. Her photo, above, was the next-to-last time(*) the bird was seen before it left that day on migration. UPDATE 18 August, 5am: The kite was seen on 17 August.
While “our” kite spent last week with us, thousands of others assembled in the southeastern U.S. ahead of their 5,000 mile migration to Brazil. Many have already left the U.S. including the 291 swallow-tailed kites that flew by the Florida Keys Hawk Watch yesterday. Isaiah Scott @ikesbirdinghikes tells their story (posted 15 Aug 2025).
With a long journey ahead of them, the kites take their time in the fall.
The whole southbound trip may take a Swallow-tailed Kite anywhere from 8 weeks to 3 months. For the most part, they don’t rush. Instead they move at a slow but persistent pace, feeding as hunger and food availability dictate until reaching their wintering destinations. Unlike their northbound migration, when mates and a short nesting season await them, their southbound journey seems unhurried.
— ARCI: The Kites Migrate South, 13 August 2018
We know about this timing because the Avian Research and Conservation Institute (ARCI) has been tracking swallow-tailed kite migration via satellite and GSM since 1996. Some kites dawdle so much in the fall that they don’t reach their favorite wintering grounds until December. Then they turn around just six weeks later and head north at a faster pace.
Learn about this year’s cohort of 20 tagged swallow-tailed kites that are already en route to Brazil and see their maps at ARCI: 2025 Aerial Research Team Roster: Meet the Swallow-tailed Kites.