White-tailed Kite: a rare and welcome raptor

Jon Hammond.

A young White-tailed Kite landed in an elm tree at our place.

I saw one of the most beautiful birds of prey in North America this week, as it hovered over a fallowed field north of Highline Road: a White-tailed Kite.

These striking birds are among my favorites and are one of the most uncommon raptors found in the Tehachapi area – most people have never even heard of them.

White-tailed Kites (Elanus leucurus) are medium-sized birds of prey that typically hunt in open grasslands, fallow fields and savannahs. They are mostly white and can be mistaken for gulls from a distance, though if you see them up close their sharply hooked bills make it clear that they are raptors, not gulls.

Though mostly white, these birds do have dark patches on the bend of their wings and for a time were known as "Black-shouldered Kites." They also have a black mask surrounding each eye. You can sometimes see one of these elegant, fairy-like birds, as I did this week, hovering over grasslands, savannahs and open fields, waiting for a rodent to appear.

While gently flapping their wings to hover in place, White-tailed Kites often face into the wind and hang suspended in one place, with little forward or backwards movement, like an actual kite tethered at the end of an invisible string. This hunting behavior is so distinctive of them that it has been named "kiting" after them.

These beautiful birds nearly vanished in California during the 1930s and 40s due to shooting, egg collectors and habitat loss, but their numbers have recovered. One of the interesting things about them, however, is that they are generally not abundant anywhere – in the U.S. they are mostly found in California, though small populations can be found in Oregon, Texas, Louisiana and Florida. There are also populations in South America.

Jon Hammond.

A Northern Mockingbird and the Kite watch each other warily. Note the Kite's sharply hooked bill.

White-tailed Kites are just one of those species, like ring-tailed cats, wolverines, Sierra tiger lilies, Ensatina salamanders, legless lizards and many others that are seldom encountered – they're typically uncommon .

White-tailed Kites eat almost exclusively small mammals, and somehow songbirds seem to be aware of this and generally show little fear of Kites, even when the Kites are hunting above them. When it comes to accipiters, however, like Sharp-shinned Hawks and Cooper's Hawks, which eat mostly other birds, the resident songbirds wisely leave them alone, preferring to crouch in a dense shrub until the Sharpie or Cooper's vacates the premises.

A number of years ago, I watched a young White-tailed Kite at our place that was minding his own business, perched in a Siberian elm tree, grooming its feathers in peace, until it was spotted by a Western Kingbird and a Northern Mockingbird. Then these two combative birds saw the Kite, landed in the tree near it and proceeded to pester it for the next 20 minutes.

Jon Hammond.

A young White-tailed Kite opens its beak in protest at the unwelcome reception it received.

The Kite was never in danger from the two songbirds, of course, but they took turns swooping at it and harassing the raptor as it tried to complete its preening. First the Kingbird, then the Mockingbird would fly at the young Kite, which would open its mouth in protest. Finally about a half an hour after it first landed in the tree, the White-tailed Kite launched itself into the blue Tehachapi sky and left its tormentors behind.

Watching that splendid raptor was an uncommon treat that I will always remember. I've long thought that for interpretive purposes, it would be great for a falconer or a wildlife rehab/educator that visited school classrooms to bring along an adult male White-tailed Kite – these lovely birds, with sparkling white feathers and red eyes, would be an encounter with nature that none of the kids would soon forget.

Some of these charismatic raptors make an appearance every year in the Tehachapi Mountains, scanning the fields for rodents. Pairs of White-tailed Kites have even been seen nesting and raising their young here. Getting to watch them is a cherished sighting.

Keep enjoying the beauty of life in the Tehachapi Mountains.

Jon Hammond is a fourth generation Kern County resident who has photographed and written about the Tehachapi Mountains for 38 years. He lives on a farm his family started in 1921, and is a speaker of Nuwä, the Tehachapi Indian language. He can be reached at [email protected].