Some surprises as the first Swallow-tailed Kites of the 2015 breeding season fly south

Although we are never sure which of our satellite/GPS-tracked Swallow-tailed Kites will leave the U. S. first on their southbound migration, one of the trends has been for birds nesting the farthest south, such as MIA, to leave the soonest; and for those nesting along the northern Gulf coast to depart later. This year Day, a female tagged in 2011 in Daytona Beach, Florida, was the first to go.

Day, a Swallow-tailed Kite tagged in Daytona, Florida, is the first tracked bird to
depart the U.S. for the 2015 fall migration.

After nesting, she moved into a large communal roost in Volusia County, east-central Florida, where she remained for 24 days before starting south on 25 July. Day spent a night in the ranchlands of Osceola County, Florida, then another three nights in the largest of the known night roosts just west of Lake Okeechobee.

Day’s plumage is inspected for parasites and molt just prior to release
in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Her final night in Florida was on Cape Sable, the tip of Everglades National Park at the southern extreme of the Florida peninsula. At daybreak on 30 July, she slipped across Florida Bay, the Florida Keys, and out over the Florida Straits on her way to Cuba. Day was over water for 14 hours before reaching the islands northern shore and rested only a few hours before continuing westward for the length of the Guanahacabibes Peninsula and out over the Yucatan Chanel to the Yucatan Peninsula. We will see if she makes a lengthy stopover here, which many kites do, before resuming her long southbound migration entirely over land.

Locations and movements of nine GPS/Satellite-tracked Swallow-tailed Kites
as the 2015 southbound migration commences.

The second bird to leave the U.S. was Strong River, which our collaborator, Dr. Jennifer Coulson, tagged late in the nesting season in Mississippi. This is the first time that a kite tagged west of the Florida Panhandle began its southbound migration so early. More on Strong River’s trip in our next blog.

MIA, Pace, Lacombe, PearlMS, and Gulf Hammock are still in their same locations described in our previous blog.

The Swallow-tailed Kites to watch are Bullfrog, still feeding and roosting south of Lake Okeechobee in Hendry county Florida; and Palmetto of South Carolina. Palmetto recently left her pre-migration staging area on Georgia’s Altamaha River and has made her way south to Sumter County in west-central Florida.

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