![]() Mississippi Kites breed in the southern and eastern United States and migrate to South America, mainly Argentina, Paraguay, Uraguay, and southern Brazil. Juveniles have heavily streaked brown and white bellies, heavily mottled wings, and long, banded tails. Male and female Mississippi Kites look similar except that males are slightly paler than females. They have long, dark tails and red legs and feet. ![]() Their primary wings are dark gray, their secondary wings are white, and wingtips are black. Their underparts are light gray while their upperparts are dark gray. They have light gray heads, red eyes with a dark eye patch in front, and small, strongly hooked dark bills. Mississippi Kites are small and slender birds of prey. Mississippi Kites are considered rare or accidental species in Delaware but you might occasionally spot some in the north and along the coast of the state during migration from May to June and August to September. There are many types of birds of prey that can be spotted in Delaware, including owls, hawks, eagles, and vultures. In North America, they are found mostly in southern states. Kites can be found worldwide but are more in warmer regions. However, they are both accidental species here. There are 2 species of kites in Delaware that have been spotted and they are the Mississippi Kite and the Swallow-tailed Kite. They spend a lot of time soaring looking for prey, so looking up is a great way to spot them, even on car journeys. Hope this answers some questions! Sorry for the novel haha.Įdit: just double checked my state laws, looks like only apprentices are not allowed to fly kites here.Kites are small birds of prey that are known for their amazing ability to fly into the wind and hover, which is known as kiting. I think that as long as you take good care of the bird, you’re having fun, and following the law (I’m pretty sure my state doesn’t allow Mississippi kites, not sure about others) anythings fair game! Its just new and difficult territory. It would take a large amount of experience, time, dedication and perseverance (maybe even more so than “traditional” falconry) for a pay off that many people would consider lackluster. Kites eat on the wing (while flying) so when your bird catches a lot of insects and gets full, how do you convince them to come back? Are these impossible to overcome? Most likely not, but they are major reasons why you don’t see kites in falconry. How do you get your bird back? Most falconry raptors will bring prey to the ground and stay there with it until the falconer gets to them to trade off. What are you going to hunt? Are you ok with hunting insects and rodents? Not knocking that at all but a lot of folks aren’t into it. What methods do you use to teach the bird the benefits of working with you? You’d basically have to use trial and error until something sticks. So if you’re trying to train a kite you have some hurdles: 1. On top of that falconry used to be a form of putting food on the table so there’s little to no old literature on training birds that don’t normally take larger game (except maybe merlins). It’s hard hunting style to fit human cooperation into, and even if you did many folks don’t see the benefit in it. Mississippi Kites tend to hunt insects on the wing. Generally the birds that are used have hunting styles and pursue game that suits cooperation with humans. However, I’ve never seen any kites used in falconry, at least not the bird lol. Unfortunately he was also fairly new to rehab and probably heavily imprinted them. I knew a guy who raised a clutch of them for rehab, he would toss meat cubes and insects into the air to improve their hunting skills so they could live in the wild.
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