Mississippi Kite is related to eagles, a famous invention, and hawks

HOMER, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Louisiana has its share of cool, interesting birds, and even some mosquitos large enough to seem like small birds. But one factor some birders appreciate is how easy birds are to see in the Bayou state. It’s exciting to find herons and egrets along the edges of ponds and lakes because you don’t have to be an expert to find such large species, and the same goes for the little guys that come to your feeder.

Observability counts a lot to everyday birders, and newer birders are often amazed when they see a rare glimpse of hawks or other raptors. Why? It’s because most raptors conceal themselves so well, even though they’re actually abundant throughout the state.

But one exception when it comes to concealment is the Mississippi Kite, also known as Ictinia mississippiensis.

Kites are most closely related to hawks and eagles, but the current number of 23 kite species around the world are interrelated somewhat distantly and include 14 genera. (Genera are closely related groups or branches, and is the plural form of the word genus.) And each of the five species of kites native to North America is in a different genus.

Why the name kite?

Kites are raptors that exhibit an amazing amount of diversity of appearance. Some are pale, others are dark; some are large, and others are tiny. So, if that’s true, what makes a Kite a Kite? And if you’re wondering about the connection between the bird and a windy day, a long tail, and string you’re onto something.

There is a link between a Kite and a kite. But which came name came first? Was the bird named after the traditional, triangular toy kites that swoop and dive and rise with the wind, or was the toy kite named after a Kite?

It was the swooping, diving, and rising of a bird known as the avian Kite that inspired the name for the toy kite. Those graceful, buoyant swoops and dives are the art form of the raptor with a light frame, long narrow wings and tail, and a small-hooked bill. All Kites have these characteristics in common, even if they vary in plumage or size.

Kites sail through the sky with grace.

So do kites, but that’s a different story.

On migration and diet

Mississippi Kites spend their winters mostly in Paraguay and northern Argentina, over 4000 miles away from Louisiana. They arrive in South Louisiana in early April each year, but Kites don’t make it to the Ark-La-Tex until about the middle of April. They spend their summers throughout most of the Southeast and Gulf Coast, up most of the Atlantic Coast, and from Central Texas to Kansas and west to the easternmost Great Plains.

While they spend their breeding season here, you can often see Mississippi Kites soaring and swooping through the sky on warm, cloudless days while they hunt prey. Their diet consists almost entirely of insects, so you need not worry about your pets or chickens.

But if you happen to own cicadas, grasshoppers, or dragonflies, I have very upsetting news. Mississippi Kites are like F-16s in the air; they’re fast, acrobatic, and buoyant. They might hunt with almost no visible effort, or they may dive and invert and roll, convincing you they’re having fun while doing it. All that’s missing are the machine guns and air-to-air missiles.

Once they snag prey from the air, they proceed almost immediately to eat while still on the wing, as if the sky is nothing but a Taco Bell drive-through. The only activity more impressive when it comes to Mississippi Kites happens in July and August after all the immatures have left their nests, and swarms of Kites of all ages descend on hovering hordes of dragonflies so they can bulk up for their impending southern migration, which starts about mid-August.

It only takes about a month for all the Mississippi Kites in North America to leave, attributed to their very fuel-efficient diet of, mostly, locally-grown flying insects.

On finding a Kite in the wild

I have often looked up over a field on a hot August day and noticed two or three kites, only to stop and watch and soon realize there are many more. Thirty or forty can constantly zoom in and out of dragonfly swarms like dogfighting jets. They may pass as low as your face, and you’ll soon become nearly dizzy trying to count numbers.

But you don’t have to wait until August to see kites. Find a farmer cutting a hay field and just look up. Or find a neighborhood or small town with lots of full, fluffy oak trees and a few old dead snags. Look up and wait. Unless it’s raining, then you should go inside.

There’s just one trick to finding a Kite. Mississippi Kites have a special kind of camouflage. Generally, the adults are slaty blue-gray above and below with dark wing tips and tails, pale heads, and pale secondary feathers which are the inner flight feathers of their wings. The combination of slaty blue-gray and pale allow the birds to virtually disappear when seen from a side profile in a blue sky, with or without clouds. You’ll be watching one dive and float, and then the bird seems to inexplicably disappear like a ghost, or like Joss Whedon’s “Firefly,” only to reappear from nothing.

I don’t know if a dragonfly or cicada also loses sight of kites, but the rate at which these flying little critters wind up on the all-you-can-eat buffet at Mississippi Kite Diner tells me they probably do.

Latest Posts: