Your questions answered!
Many of you have wondered how migrating Swallow-tailed Kites manage in the face of a hurricane. Over the last three days, our buddy Suwannee 22 shared her life-or-death struggle with the unforgiving winds of Hurricane Debby. After a calm night in the Fakahatchee Strand State Forest in Collier County, Florida, she awoke on August 3rd to tail winds that should have easily carried her across the Gulf of Mexico to the migrating kites’ traditional waypoint on the Yucatan Peninsula. What a perfect way to start her 5,000+ mile journey to her austral-summer home!
However, as night fell 12 hours later, Suwannee 22 found herself struggling to push south, within 60 miles of western Cuba. What happened? The GPS fixes coming from her radio, which were concentrated in this area, and her abrupt change in heading back to the north all suggest that, no longer able to outfly Debby’s fickle winds, Suwannee 22 chose to go with the flow. For the next 12 hours (whew!), she had a welcome tailwind pushing her northward parallel to Florida’s west coast. Her path, 60 miles seaward of the peninsula’s shoreline, brought her within 45 miles of St. Petersburg, Florida, by about 6 pm on August 4th.
Figuring that all this was way more than an ample endurance test for Suwannee 22, a reader might be thinking that she was about to find safe harbor somewhere in the mangrove fringe of the greater Tampa/St. Pete metropolitan area. Well, not so. For the next four hours, our hero struggled unsuccessfully to touch down and wait out the weather. And, yet again, it was not meant to be. However, this time she found refuge in a different kind of structure. Given the time stamps of her subsequent GPS track and Debby’s radar-inscribed path, we are quite certain Suwannee 22 hitched a ride in the developing eye of the storm. It appears that, against all odds, the two simultaneously made landfall in Steinhatchee, a remote outpost in Florida’s Big Bend. By 8 am on August 5th, Suwannee 22 was over land in the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area, likely resting after being blown over and through the tree canopy where she sought a strong perch. This kite certainly deserved a break!
This also is a good time for all of us to commit to giving these spectacular ambassadors of our beleaguered avifauna what they need most at this time of year. The Swallow-tailed Kite’s unviolated space in Florida’s quiet wetland landscapes is where they reunite to rest, seek the fuel they need for their annual migrations, and synchronize their encounters with the unimaginable obstacles they face twice each year, every year of their lives.
Suwannee 22 will have to start her pre-migration process over with a lot of rest and food to build up her strength for another chance at crossing the Gulf of Mexico. And we’ll keep you posted when she does!
We are grateful to the Friends of the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge Complex for funding this tracking project and the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge for their logistical support.
You can help with the Swallow-tailed Kite Population Monitoring survey by sharing your kite observations HERE.
We thank you,
ARCI
Pulling for Suwanee 22!
Fingers crossed!