After literally years of trolling us, the weirdest presumed breeding bird on Cape Cod has finally given up the goods. The huge, unmistakable birds in question, known to nest prominently in the tallest tree around, have somehow hidden definitive evidence of actual nests with chicks in them since at least 2022. Sure, they teased us with various breeding adjacent behaviors – namely copulation and carrying sticks, both in full view of birders with cameras – but no one ever found an actual nest or babies. If you still don’t know, I’m of course talking about Swallow-tailed Kites, one of my most frequent topics for years now. And, thanks to long time Cape birder Peter Trimble, we finally have photos and videos of recently fledged chicks!
To recap, Swallow-tailed Kites are not supposed to nest anywhere north of the Carolinas. The larger southern population nests from Southern Mexico down through South America, and the northern population mostly nests in piney swampland in Florida, then leaves for wintering grounds in Brazil by late summer. But for many years a few Swallow-tailed Kites, like other rare southern migrants, would end up here during strong southerly winds each spring. Starting a few years ago, it was clear that some of them didn’t leave, with a consistent pattern of spring through summer sightings from South Sandwich to the various Barnstable villages adjacent to Mashpee.
Back in 2022, a homeowner in Sandwich reached out about seeing a Swallow-tailed Kite repeatedly in her yard that summer. She eventually got a surreal photo of two mating. It was late July, so too late for breeding, but that put the birding community on notice. The pattern of Upper Cape sightings from early spring through summer continued, but it wasn’t until last year that people started seeing them in one place consistently - Santuit Pond Preserve in Mashpee and into parts of Barnstable. Some got photos of them carrying sticks, so we were getting closer. I and another birder independently stumbled across a group of 5 Swallow-tailed Kites near Santuit last May 26th, the highest count ever in Massachusetts. This was getting ridiculous – there had to be a nest. But none materialized. By late summer, up to six or seven were staging in some spruce trees right on Rt. 28 near the Cotuit Center for the Arts.
This summer it was more of the same – lots of sightings in the same general area, but no nest. But a few days ago, a determined Peter Trimble started staking out the area they frequent in late summer, a church thrift store across from the Cotuit Center for the Arts. Like a private eye trying to catch a cheating spouse, he spent hours staked out there, sometimes in the rain, before it finally happened – on Sunday, an adult kite delivered food, a small bird of some kind, to what were obviously its begging fledglings. It sounded something like this. The fledglings by now pretty much look like the adults, but the behavior was clear – these birds came from a local nest. This is likely the first confirmed breeding of Swallow-tailed Kites this side of North Carolina, at least in modern times.
I’ve described these birds so many time before that my thesaurus caught fire from overuse, but suffice it to say that as huge, pointy, black and white hawks, they are hard to misidentify. They spend most of the day gliding around gracefully, annoying the clunkier hawks who think they’re show-offs, and grabbing flying insects with their feet. So you don’t see them perched very much, but the young ones sometimes sit in those spruce trees waiting for food.
This is already later than they’ve ever stayed, so don’t wait if you want to see them. And if anyone from that church thrift store is listening, if you were smart, you’d start selling Swallow-tailed Kite merchandise sooner than later.
