A female GPS-tracked Swallow-tailed Kite, Cinco, was tagged as an adult in 2023 on the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge in Collier County, Florida, with funds from the Friends of the Florida Panther NWR. In late-January, Cinco began her long journey from her winter range in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil back to her southern Florida breeding grounds. However, this kite wound up living through an over-ocean migration adventure unlike any we have ever documented.
North-bound Swallow-tailed Kites sometimes “cut corners” by flying from northern Honduras to the northern Yucatán Peninsula, despite the often-fatal risks raptors face when flying over such large expanses of water. On 4 March 2025, Cinco embarked on such an 18-hour flight over the Caribbean that took her to northern Quintana Roo, Mexico. After spending a night there, Cinco flew northeast across the Gulf of Mexico, on 5 March 2025, only to be pushed ashore east of Havana, Cuba. After another 18-hour flight, Cinco stopped to rest on Cuba’s Cayos de las Cinco Leguas. Ha! Cinco rested on Cinco Leguas on cinco March!
On 6 March, Cinco was forced farther east before a fortunate wind turned her northward to the western shore of North Andros Island, The Bahamas, where she set down, no doubt to rest, 20 hours of flying over open ocean. Thank goodness for this respite, because her flight path soon became even more interesting! Northbound again on 7 March, perhaps with the notion that she was within the Gulf of Mexico and would eventually reach the Gulf’s northern shore between Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle as many migrants do. Instead, Cinco was swept northeastward out into the Atlantic Ocean, after passing within 50 miles of West Palm Beach, Florida.
Cinco’s flight eventually took her beyond the continental shelf to a point 130 miles east of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The next nearest dry land was the tiny island of Bermuda, 500 miles east. However, around midnight on 9 March, Cinco’s fate took a turn for the better – literally – when, probably due to a change in wind direction (perhaps at the interface of two revolving high-pressure systems), she nearly reversed course and took up a heading that brought her to Charleston, South Carolina, 58 hours later. As expected, Cinco has travelled very little since reaching shore in recovery.
Have you been doing the math? Cinco logged 114 hours of travel time, most of which were over oceans, just to make it safely from the Yucatán Peninsula to the east coast of South Carolina. That’s almost five days and nights mostly over water! If she had not been able to rest briefly and perhaps take in a bit of food and water on the Yucatán Peninsula, Cuba, and The Bahamas, she almost certainly would have perished.
This is a testament to the perils and unpredictability of migration, especially when so much trans-oceanic flight becomes necessary. We have yet to get signal and location from Cinco’s “refuge mate” Paurotis, also tagged at the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. Given that they had been travelling hours apart as they made their way over thousands of miles of the Western Hemisphere, it is possible that Paurotis encountered the same conditions. If Paurotis was not fortunate enough to find and linger on The Bahamas, she could have been lost in the Atlantic Ocean. We will never know.
Thank you, reader, for caring about these and the many millions of other birds that enrich our lives, and grace this spectacularly beautiful and fascinating planet we call home.
ARCI is tracking Swallow-tailed Kites not only to monitor their roosts, foraging areas, stopover sites, and winter destinations, but also to see how they use public and private lands, and how they survive and endure the changes we impose on them. We are grateful to our kind and generous funders and project partners who make this research possible.
Wow…so glad she made it,the weather was far from ideal this year, hope more arrive…have only been seeing one here at Saddle Creek Park in Lakeland, Fl