Wildlife Spotlight: Mississippi Kite

© Peter May

One of the many signs of spring in north Florida is the return of the Mississippi kite from its wintering grounds in South America. The graceful and smooth, buoyant flight of this migratory raptor is especially evident in Florida from April through September along the floodplain forests north and west of the Suwannee River. Some Mississippi kites nest as far south as Alachua and Levy counties.

The Mississippi kite eats some vertebrates such as frogs, lizards, birds and bats, but insects comprise the bulk of its diet. This aerial feeding specialist is adept at catching dragonflies, cicadas, beetles and other large flying insects, which are caught with one or both feet and eaten on the wing. In Florida, the Mississippi kite breeds from May through July, usually laying two eggs in difficult to spot nests built in the forest canopy. Some nests are reused from year to year.

Identification of the Mississippi kite is fairly straightforward. Adults have a gray body with long, pointed, slightly darker wings and a lighter-colored head. The long tail is black. The breeding range of the Mississippi kite overlaps that of the swallow-tailed kite in northwest Florida. Mississippi kites lack the long, forked tail of swallow-tailed kites making these two birds easy to separate in the field.

Kites spend much of the time in the air in slow, seemingly effortless glides. Kites migrate in loose flocks and are already paired when they arrive on their breeding grounds. The population of Mississippi kites reached a low point in the 1940s following a steady decline that began around the turn of the century. The good news is that the species is reoccupying much of its former range in the southwestern and southeastern states and is commonly spotted nesting in suburban areas.