Julie and I were out foraging for dewberries yesterday when we heard a strange call, one I’ve never heard before. Merlin1 identified it as a Mississippi Kite, and sure enough, there it was in its regular tree. They’ve only recently shown back up here.
The tree it was in is a very tall pine tree with bare branches at the top, the same tree they frequented last year. This tree has apparently died over the past year; bark is falling off over half the trunk and there is no new growth. Unfortunately, it’s going to have to come down. Either on its own during a storm, taking out my neighbor’s roof and the local power lines, or sometime before the next hurricane. Or in a tornado, like the thirteen we got last week.
As we were watching and listening, another kite showed up, landed briefly next to the first, and then flew away. My first thought was courtship feeding!
I have seen courtship feeding in birds before; I even wrote about courting blue jays in my backyard recently. This was the first time I’d seen this behavior with kites, though, so of course I had to learn more about it.
My go-to source is the subscription-based Birds of the World, an online database that gathers scholarly research from around the world, millions of observations from eBird, and photos, video and audio from the Macaulay Library, a scientific archive for research, education, and conservation.
On the first page, though, I read, “Studies of the Mississippi Kite are not numerous” and “Little is known of the Mississippi Kite outside the United States.”
Well, then. Still lots of valuable info.
I learned that courtship displays were rarely seen in nesting areas and not reported at all out of North America. Courtship behavior and pairing usually occur before arrival at nest areas (early May) and most nesting kites are paired at the time of arrival.
What I was seeing definitely seemed like courtship behavior. I dug a little deeper into their migration: Where did they come from? Where do they nest?
Mississippi Kites spend the winter in deep South America, way further south than I had expected (near Paraguay). In the spring, they make their way through Central America and then spread out into the southeastern United States. They frequently reuse the same small local area for nesting, even building new nests in same tree or limb fork used previously. And since they are monogamous, this may even be the same pair we watched last year!
Most Mississippi Kites nest in mature bottomland forest, and prefer larger, unfragmented forests with considerable nearby open habitat, including pasture and cropland, waterways, and small lakes. The use of urban habitat in the eastern United States remains rare compared to western populations.
All this seems contrary to what I was observing. I was watching what appeared to be courtship behavior, I saw a juvenile being fed in this same tree last year, and although I have yet to confirm it, I believe I can see a nest in a nearby tree that may belong to them.
None of the studies cited in the entry for Mississippi Kites were published within the last 25 years. Given the suburban sprawl that has increased in the last few decades, it may be a good opportunity for a graduate student.
Back to the courtship feeding
The behavior that I’m used to with smaller birds (blue jay and cardinals, especially) is for the male to gather food then place it directly into the female’s beak. The kite’s behavior was similar, but not the same. The male would fly to the female and land next to her, and then almost immediately fly off, repeating this a dozen times or more while we were watching.
The female would then, as I initially thought, wipe her beak on the branch, as if she was cleaning it. But as I zoomed in, I saw she was nibbling at something on the branch. Occasionally, she would step over to the spot the male landed, and then nibble at her talons.
Did the male leave something for her to eat? I enlarged the photo as much as I could, but I’m not sure what she had. Caterpillar? A kite’s main source of food is medium to large sized insects, but could include frogs, toads, lizards, small box turtles, snakes, small birds, terrestrial mammals, and bats. I wish I could have seen something more obvious.
The call of the female kite
I’m familiar with the most common call of the Mississippi Kite; it’s a two syllable, high pitched falling whistle described as *pee-phew.* None of my identification apps, however, had an example of what I was hearing when the female was calling to the male.
She’d start with softer, multisyllabic calls when the male came in close to land. Birds of the World calls it Phee-ti-ti or Phee-ti-ti-ti, and it’s usually given by individuals positively excited, as in courtship behavior, including feeding and transfer of nesting material, copulation, relief of adult at nest by mate, or between parent and nestling. Again, this points to courtship and nesting in our neighborhood. I’d call the sound I heard more like Phee-ti Phee-ti Phee-ti.
It’s not a distinctive sound, and I’m not sure I’d recognize it if I heard it out of context. Another reason I like Merlin!
Video
Here are some short videos I was able to take. I apologize for the unsteadiness; they were a very high up and I was at maximum zoom on my camera. This first one is the female nibbling on the branch after the male landed and then left.
This one shows how quickly the male landed and left. We had to watch this one frame by frame to see which bird stayed behind, and it was the female that hopped up and turned around while the male landed and left.
And here is the female calling to the male with the unfamiliar call.
Today’s update
As I was writing this, I heard the familiar Pee-phew call from inside my office and thought I’d try to get a video of that. It’s a much prettier day today, anyway.
Of course, she stopped as soon as I got out my camera. I did see the male fly in to land, and was chased off by a blue jay. A nearby fish crow, in the same tree, didn’t seem to care what was going on.
The male did come back a short time later, with food (a grasshopper?) in his mouth. He perched a few branches away from the female and ate a few bites. But then, he brought the rest to the female and fed it directly to her, as I’ve seen in courtship feeding with other birds!
She happily accepted it and munched on the rest.
What I’ve learned
Birds can be fascinating.
A new bird call that I may or may not recognize in the future.
Just because the studies say something is rarely seen doesn’t mean you won’t see it. And spending the time to watch is always worth it.
The science is never complete. Behaviors change, birds adapt and evolve, and habitats get converted and restored. What I see and record can help scientists understand what’s happening with the world.
Now, I think I’ll go back outside.
Merlin is like Shazam for bird songs. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than I am. It’s an app for your phone by Cornell Labs and it’s free to use. Merlin can identify the birds around you by listening, by analyzing a photo, or by just answer a couple of questions about what you saw. I highly recommend it.
Fascinating! And I agree about Merlin; it is definitely helping me to put names to the songs I hear.