Where will this Swallow-tailed Kite migrate to during its fall migration? (Photo by Paul Konrad)

As Swallow-tailed Kites that nest in our southeastern states begin their fall migration south, how much do we really know about their migrations, wintering areas, nesting sites, and other life history information? Researchers studying Swallow-tailed Kites have slowly been filling in our knowledge gaps about these elegant raptors. Through the use of satellite transmitters, biologists learned that most “American” kites migrate about 5,000 miles across the Gulf of Mexico, through Central America, over the Andes, and across the Amazon Basin to southern Brazil that bear a striking resemblance to some areas where they nest in north-central Florida and other Gulf regions.

Operating out of the suburban Gainesville headquarters of the Avian Research and Conservation Institute, an organization Ken Meyer founded in 1997, he and Institute staff have amassed more than 30 years of research on Swallow-tailed Kites. When Meyer first began studying kites as a post-doctorate associate at the University of Florida in 1988, little was known about the species. This was particularly surprising to the young biologist given how visible the birds are during the nesting season, especially over their current stronghold of Florida.

Swallow-tailed Kites are regularly seen carrying cypress twigs and long strands of Spanish moss back to their nests, or carving beautiful looping arcs through the sky as they fly and forage above waterways and agricultural fields, picking off large flying insects. Even so, no one knew how many Swallow-tailed Kites existed, whether their populations were rising or falling, which habitats were critical to their survival, or even where the birds went when they migrated out of the United States.

Meyer saw the lack of knowledge as a research opportunity – and a desperate need. “Here’s this amazing bird that captivates everybody’s attention,” he recalls thinking. “They’re thought to be long-distance migrants, but nobody knows where they go or how they get there.”

What’s more, scientists suspected the Swallow-tailed Kite population might be critically low, and falling. “The only number that had been bounced around was 5,000 individuals,” Meyer explained, referring to the population of Swallow-tailed Kites that nests in the United States and is genetically distinct from resident Swallow-tail populations in South America. “And we didn’t know enough to really do any good for them,” Meyer added.

Since then, Institute biologists Meyer and Gina Kent have slowly been filling in the many knowledge gaps along with raptor biologist Jennifer Coulson, who studies Swallow-tailed Kites in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. They discovered that the birds rely on a diverse mosaic of habitat types to meet their foraging and nesting requirements, and that these kites are highly social, unlike most other raptors. They form so-called “neighborhoods” of about a half-dozen nesting pairs that the kites collectively defend from predators and reliably return to year after year.

But while the research has answered many critical questions about the species’ basic natural history and nesting ecology, it hasn’t alleviated the scientists’ concerns. Although Swallow-tailed Kites seem to be doing relatively well in the far southeast corner of the country, they still haven’t recovered much, if any, of the range they occupied before their precipitous decline in the early 1900’s.

Permanent habitat loss due to timber harvest and development for agriculture almost certainly played a role. But the researchers say there are also other factors limiting Swallow-tailed Kites. One is the increase in predators like Great Horned Owls and Red-tailed Hawks that, according to Coulson, has been correlated with the ongoing sprawl of suburbs around cities in the Southeast. The kites’ social nature also makes range expansion inherently slower and more challenging.

“They really want to nest close to other kites,” Coulson described. “So it’s unusual that you would have a neighborhood, say 50 miles away, from the nearest neighborhood of kites. It might be five miles or 10 miles away.” So for Swallow-tailed Kites to expand their range back north to the limit of their former range in southern Minnesota, they will need neighborhood stepping stones.

Despite these limiting factors, the researchers have found that the overall population of kites that nest in the United States is larger than once thought. Meyer now puts the figure between 15,000 and 25,000, and that number appears to have increased somewhat over the past decade. One reason for this modest uptick is surprising in light of the logging that precipitated the species’ initial decline.

In the late ‘90s, Meyer and Kent began finding Swallow-tailed Kites nesting in timber company pine plantations. The more they looked, the more kites they found on the managed timberlands – and both researchers thought there might be an opportunity to improve on what already seemed to be working in the kites’ favor.

To follow more of this interesting Swallow-tailed Kite article, please refer to the original Audubon story at https://www.audubon.org/news/the-secret-lives-swallow-tailed-kites