Kite’s flight: An impressive sight

By Charles Seabrook

For the AJC

When it comes to grace, beauty and skill in flight, no other Georgia bird matches the swallow-tailed kite. And no other bird is easier to identify, even at a distance.

Enlarge photo

File A good place to go to see the swallow-tailed kites is at the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Jasper County.

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The hawk-size kite’s distinctive tail is long and forked, like an open pair of scissors; its head and underparts are white; its back, tail and pointed wings are black — all of which readily distinguish it from any other bird.

Etched against a late summer blue sky, a swallow-tailed kite resembles a flying star — one of nature’s most impressive sights. At a distance, a kite suggests a large swallow, a resemblance also emphasized by its agile flight.

Like swallows and swifts, swallow-tailed kites, which are raptors, spend much of their day on the wing, swooping and gliding about with amazing agility. They catch much of their insect food on the wing and swoop down to snatch lizards from tree trunks, eating their wriggling catch while still flying. They drink by skimming the surface of ponds and marshes; they gather nesting material by breaking dead twigs from the tops of trees as they fly past.

All of this, of course, gives the swallow-tailed kite the reputation of a superb master of flight — made possible by its powerful, swept-back wings and strong tail. While it is usually seen low overhead, it occasionally ascends to great heights in the sky where it soars and performs grand, aerial maneuvers by rotating its tail feathers.

Swallow-tailed kites in Georgia build their nests high in treetops in swampy areas of the coastal plain. But in late summer, when their nesting season has wound down, they tend to wander. Thus, there’s a fine chance of seeing a swallow-tailed kite — even a small flock of them — now in metro Atlanta or elsewhere in the Piedmont.

A good place to spot them is at the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Jasper County, an hour’s drive east of Atlanta. Bird-watchers have been flocking there in recent days to see small flocks of kites nimbly wheeling, gliding and soaring in the sky.

The birds are flocking now to make their arduous fall journey to winter homes as far south as southeastern Brazil. Usually mixed in with the swallow-tail flocks are their close cousins, Mississippi kites, which also are agile fliers but not as spectacular in appearance.

The swallow-tailed kite, unfortunately, is one of our birds in serious trouble.

Its population has plummeted because of illegal hunting, development and logging in bottomland swamps. The species formerly ranged as far north as the Great Lakes, but it now is confined to the Deep South.

In the sky

The moon will be full on Friday. Cherokees call early September’s full moon the “nut moon,” says David Dundee, an astronomer with the Tellus Northwest Georgia Science Museum. Mercury is low in the west just after sunset. Venus, shining brightly, rises three hours before the sun. Mars rises out of the east almost four hours before sunrise. Jupiter is high in the west at sunset, and it will appear close to the moon on Friday night.