One more white tailed kite

White tailed kite from a couple days ago. This image is a 25% scale crop of the original.

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Looks like a mean flying machine with some tough meathooks. Nice shot Bill!

Beautiful shot, Bill, and a great-looking bird. I don't mean to question your ID, as I know little about kites. We saw one at Palo Duro a few years back we thought was a Mississippi Kite, looked just like this. Is this one's tail white? It looks dark in the photo.

Nice image Bill, but I think Stan is right. At first I thought it was the light, but the head, breast and tail on a White-tailed is very white. Also, I think the Mississippi would be more likely to occur in the DFW area.

I've seen White-tailed many times, always flying along roads both on the Texas coast and in the Sacramento Valley. I've never seen a Mississippi up close, but when I lived in Houston there were a coiple of weeks each fall when all I could see them flying high overhead every time I stepped outside.

Looks like he or she is ready to pounce something

White tailed kites have black shoulders. : )

ajosteve wrote in post #10290407
Looks like a mean flying machine with some tough meathooks. Nice shot Bill!

Thanks, Steve.

sparker1 wrote in post #10292064
Beautiful shot, Bill, and a great-looking bird. I don't mean to question your ID, as I know little about kites. We saw one at Palo Duro a few years back we thought was a Mississippi Kite, looked just like this. Is this one's tail white? It looks dark in the photo.

Stan, I am certainly no authority on birds and I welcome corrections. I based my ID on information in a Roger Tory Peterson book along with what I found on the Cornell web site. I seem to recall that there was a distinguishing characteristic on the wing markings. The time was late and shadows were dark and the light did last much longer. I will need to wait until I return home to find a better image andcheck the ID information again. Maybe K willbe able to get an image earlier I'm the day.

I welcome any additional input on identifying this bird. I was not fully satisfied with the white tailed kite results, but the Mississippi results did not seem to be as good. I actually preferred black winged kite as a better match, but then learned that they are eastern hemisphere birds. My visual assessment is that the head is almost pure white, but faintly gray. The black around the eye and red pupil should be identifying characteristics. I can't do much web surfing with my iPhone, so I can't confirm anything right now.

kd_reno wrote in post #10292402
Nice image Bill, but I think Stan is right. At first I thought it was the light, but the head, breast and tail on a White-tailed is very white. Also, I think the Mississippi would be more likely to occur in the DFW area.

I've seen White-tailed many times, always flying along roads both on the Texas coast and in the Sacramento Valley. I've never seen a Mississippi up close, but when I lived in Houston there were a coiple of weeks each fall when all I could see them flying high overhead every time I stepped outside.

KenVP wrote in post #10292436
Looks like he or she is ready to pounce something

Bill, for a while in the 80s the white-tailed, black-winged and black-shouldered (Australia) were considered a single species, and North American field guide editions from that time show it as the black-shouldered.

On your bird you can see the underside of the left wing and it's dark. On a white-tailed it would be white. The right wing looks almost black on top, but I think that's just the light. But the color is uniform on the whole wing. On a WT you should see a distinct separation between the black patch and the rest of the wing, which is a pale grey on top. I think it would show even from that angle.

Nice shot. I have never seen a kite before.

canonloader wrote in post #10295497
Nice shot. I have never seen a kite before.

Until this pair took up residence in our neighbor's yard,I also never saw (or noticed) this particilar species. Thanks for the compliment, Mitch.

Regarding the ID question, I will try to resolve it after I return home. In flight, the underside of their wings is light with black tips. I haven't been able to get a BIF because they fly fast and low usually doing crossing figure eights involving at least two of them and right at tree top height (about 35 feet). This swarming tactic confuses the heck out of the small birds that apparently are trying to flush into the open.

ID isn't that big a deal. You got good shots of a beautiful bird. Well done.

Very nice shot of a Mississippi Kite! Underside and tail would be white on Whitetail Kite, but who cares it is a great shot of a beautiful interesting bird!!

Mississippi Kite is one of the great comeback stories, these are hacked and many have been released in our area by a wonderful fellow named Knox Martin. Knox has worked at the Memphis zoo for years and now also operates the w w w . m i d s o u t h r a p t o r c e n t e r . c o m which does wonderful work with raptors.

There is one field near my office now that during Mid-Day there are as many as 25 feeding in the fields eating dragonflies, They catch them and eat them in the air!!! I have been "trying" to get some good BIF shots of these wonderful acrobats but they are tough!!! Like High Bright skys on very windy days, Don't mean to hijack your thread I just love these guys!! and they are teaching me to be "humble" here are a few of my feeble attempts!!