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White-tailed Kite ? (1 Viewer)

rban

New member
I took this photo yesterday at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge along the Gulf coast in Texas. We planned to go to Smith's Point to see the observatory for hawk migration, but didn't make it there. However, we sure saw a lot of raptors...

I had never seen a raptor like this. From looking at photos on the web, I thought it might be a Mississippi Kite. However, when I opened an ID book, it looked like a White-tailed Kite. The tail doesn't look dark enough to be a Mississippi Kite from what I could see.

Anyone with more experience with this able to confirm the ID?

Thanks for your help !
 

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I'd say definitely a White-tailed Kite. They are in Texas and your photo is pretty clear showing the light tail and the black shoulder patches. In fact here in Mexico they call this a Black-shouldered Kite because of those Black patches.

The Mississippi Kite has Black flight feathers and a dark tail which your bird doesn't have so you were correct to rule him out.

Maybe some of our Raptor experts will chime in and give you some of the other ID give aways.

Great sighting! Congratulations.
 
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Yes, definitely White-tailed (or Black-shouldered as it was once) Kite. One "ID give away" is that it's one of the few largeish raptors that habitually hovers - a pale raptor "hanging in the wind" is pretty likely to be this species.
 
It's fairly common to see White-tailed Kites along the Upper Texas Coast from the late fall through the winter. Anahuac, the Bolivar peninsula, west Galveston Island, and the Brazoria county areas are prime places to see this interesting raptor.

Mississippi Kites are usually out of the area by mid-October, and Smith Point is a good place to see them in good numbers.

Rban, FYI, the 20th-30th of September is the best time to hit Smith Point, as you can see the big kettles of Broad-wings, Mississippi and possibly Swallow-tailed Kites (though the latter is an earlier migrant as a rule), and many other raptors. This year, there were workshops and a mini-festival at Smith Point the last weekend in September and first weekend in October. It was a good time to spend with other birders and witness the greatest density of raptor migration for the upper coast. Hazel Bazemore Park outside of Corpus Christi has about 10 times the numbers Smith Point does (this year, they've had over 700,000 raptors), but Smith Point has the lock on Swallow-tailed Kites (~170 last year).

Good luck on your further raptor quests around the Houston area. During the winter, about every other telephone pole will have some type of bird of prey (shrike, kestrel, Red-tailed Hawk), so it's a good time to work on your skills.

Steve Gross
NW Houston
 
Thanks ! This is really helpful ! I had just heard of Smith's point two weeks ago...

So I'll put the 20th-30th of September in my calendar for next year for Smith's point.

When is the best time for Hazel Bazemore Park? I'd guess a little later?

Does the Northward migration come through the same corridors and thus there is a corresponding period in the spring for both sites?

I saw my first Shrike 2 years ago. I heard a big noise in the backyard with the birds and at first it looked like two sparrows fighting, but then I saw the Shrike fly to the ground and peck the other bird to death... Pretty amazing... My wife was upset at me when I had her look out the window and see the sparrow hung on a stem... They seem to have stayed here year round this year since I have spotted them off and on near JSC all year...

Thanks alot for your help...
 
The peak at Hazel Bazemore is pretty much the same as Smith Point. I believe that their all-time peak days were the 23rd and 24th of September, two or three years ago. If my dates are right, I believe that they had 291,000 Broad-wings on the 23rd and an even more unbelievable 400,000+ day on the 24th!

To date, the total number of raptors at Smith Point is around 30,000. Impressive on its own, but a three and a half hour drive down the coast may be truly astounding.

There are other great hawk watch sites, including Eilat in Israel and Veracruz, Mexico, but it's nice to have such great migratory spectacles so close to home.

Steve in Houston

P.S. The spring raptor migration tends to be more dispersed, though there are several sites that do spring counts (Santa Ana NWR/Bentsen State Park in the Rio Grande Valley).
 
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