Swallow-tailed Kite

Both times I’ve seen a Swallow-tailed Kite it was, true to its name, floating and zig-zagging across the sky like a kite. When it first caught me eye in Florida there was a split second where I thought, hey, who’s flying a kite out here in the woods? And then I saw the tail and knew, despite never having seen one before, I knew that this was a Swallow-tailed Kite. They hang and drift, darting and looping around in the sky, spurred by something I have never seen. I didn’t have time to grab my binoculars either time I’ve seen one, I just watched it swoop and glide over the trees and off beyond the horizon.

The Swallow-tailed Kite a bird of high contrast, stark black and white with nothing else so that both seem to gleam when the sun catches it. The bill is so sharply hooked you notice it even a considerable distance below. Then there’s the unmistakable tail. You’ll never hear a birder wondering if something was a swallow-tailed kite. You’d be hard pressed to come up with a more distinctive, soaring shape.

This is the most graceful, elegant looking bird I think I’ve ever seen. The Audubon app calls it “our most beautiful bird of prey, striking in its shape, its pattern, and its extraordinarily graceful flight.” Even the usually demure Sibley guide calls it “extremely graceful” and suggests looking for it “swooping gracefully” above marshes and lakes. It also says there are only about 1,000 nesting pairs in the United States, which doesn’t seem like many to me. The U.S. could use more gracefulness in its skies.