THE WHITE-TAILED KITE
by
Walter L. Meagher
Photos by Wayne Colony
Some birds dare us to find them, their habitats being inaccessible or their habits secretive. White-tailed kites are raptors that take pleasure in hovering, and in making themselves visible: they hover near the Visitors Center in El Charco. Like the kestrel, kites fly low and remain stationary for a few seconds before plunging to seize a small snake, a vole, a grasshopper, then take it away.
The bird is not named after the child’s kite, quite the reverse!
On other days the white-tailed kite will prowl the scrublands of San Miguel, looking for carrion, without damaging its reputation for being a raptor. Unusually for raptors, of whom we expect a solitary lifestyle as we do for most hunters, kites are collegial; they sit together in small groups, on bare branches, often in Parque Landeta, their white feathers as bright as sunshine on snow drifts. Large red eyes contrast alarmingly with the black shoulder and white breast and belly. The good news is that while white-tailed kites were an endangered species 100 years ago, they have made a comeback and are common now, proving that conservation works.