![]() Their incubation is 28-30 days–a long time if you’re a bird used to soaring through the sky! Chicks leave the nest to take their first flight at around 40 days after hatching. Both males and females incubate and feed the growing babies.They build nests high in dead trees–often a 100 feet from the ground! They often nest in loose colonies with other kites, usually by water.They also drink while they are flying! To do this they glide low above the body of water and open their beaks.But swallow-tailed kites do! They chase them and then snag them in mid-air! (the same way dragonflies catch their prey!) Also on their menu are butterflies, beetles,bees, wasps, other insects, frogs, lizards, snakes, small birds and less often, bats, fruit and small fish. Have you ever watched a dragonfly in flight? If so then you know what amazing flyers they are, twisting and turning and darting about so quickly that it’s hard to imagine anything ever being able to catch them. Swallow-tailed kites eat almost all of their food on the wing.They can be 19-24 inches long, which includes their forked tail that is 12-15 inches long. Swallow-tailed kites are the largest species of kite in America.Florida has the highest population of kites and you can see them there only from March-September. Some swallow-tailed kites spend summers breeding in North America and then migrate to northern South America.Their range also includes Central and South America and the west Indies. These days you can find them in only a handful of states– Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas and Florida. Before 1900 these birds could be found in 21 states, their range extending from Florida and the Gulf Coast states all the way up to Minnesota.Let’s look at a few interesting things about these birds: Have you ever had the pleasure of watching a swallow-tailed kite soar in the sky above you? It is quite a sight to see as these beautiful birds are so graceful. That’s because it is not common in most of the United States. Last week’s puzzler was a swallow-tailed kite–a bird I suspect some readers may never have seen or even heard of.
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