Swallow-tailed kites successfully raise young in Arkansas after 130-year absence
by Randy Zellers Assistant Chief of Communications
With less than a year before his scheduled retirement, Mike Harris, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission senior technician at Sulphur River Wildlife Management Area, completed a quest that’s been a decade in the making — documenting the first pair of swallow-tailed kites to successfully raise young in Arkansas since 1890. With the help of a live photo from an iPhone, showing adult kites feeding a fledgling, the Arkansas Audubon Society Bird Records Committee confirmed his finding in August.
Birders in Arkansas made headlines earlier this year when roseate spoonbills and white-faced ibis were recorded successfully nesting in Arkansas for the first time, but the reappearance of swallow-tailed kites raising young registers even higher among seasoned birders.
“This is probably the most significant development in Arkansas ornithological history since I’ve been birding,” said Charles Mills, an avid birder, photographer and former curator of bird records for the Arkansas Audubon Society. “During my birding, I’ve added species to Arkansas’s bird list, so I don’t get excited very often. But this has gotten me more energized than I can remember, and I only played an incidental role in this confirmation.”
Mills accompanied Harris to capture images of a breeding pair of kites this summer after Harris sent Mills an image of the birds that showed a mature kite feeding a fledgling. He and fellow birder and photographer Keith McFaul made many subsequent trips to the area afterward to get more images.
“The actual picture used for confirmation didn’t show the markings needed to indicate the young bird was a fledgling,” Harris said. “But it was taken with an iPhone, and you could see the little snippet of video right before the photo pulled up that showed the adult coming into the limb where the fledgling was sitting. In those few moments you could see those markings. Charles was able to put that on a screen and video it again for us to send to an expert in Louisiana, who confirmed the successful nesting event.”
Recognized by birders as one of the most graceful flyers in the bird world, the swallow-tailed kite captivates anyone who witnesses its aerial acrobatics. Long wings and a deeply forked tail add to the coastal wetland bird’s maneuverability and ability to manipulate the wind with almost effortless precision. Its sleek profile and dove-shaped head belie its nature as a bird of prey, but it’s a predator of insects, reptiles and amphibians, small rodents, and smaller bird species. The species once ranged throughout much of the central and eastern U.S., including as many as 21 states. Its nesting range has been reduced to the states along the Gulf Coast and a few inland areas.
“We’ve documented swallow-tailed kites in Arkansas, as have other states, but successful breeding pairs have been absent for more than a century,” said Karen Rowe, nongame migratory bird program coordinator for the AGFC. “Wetland conversion to agriculture and harvest of timber within wetlands are largely thought to have impacted their range. They nest in super-dominant trees along the edges of the wetlands.”Image used in confirmation of the kite's successful reproduction in Arkansas.
Rowe says the discovery is the icing on the cake to a year filled with birding discoveries in Arkansas.
“We found roseate spoonbills and white-faced ibis nesting this year, but these kites are just something to see,” Rowe said. “This is about 600 miles from the nearest known nesting site, and these birds aren’t known for expanding their range so Arkansas’ successful fledging event is of national avian conservation importance. And for Mike Harris to be the one to document it makes it even more special. He’s been chasing these birds, trying to find a nest for at least a decade.”
Read the rest of the article in Arkansas Game & Fish Commission News