Many wild creatures have paid a high price for human success, as their habitats have vanished amidst our own relentless expansion. But there are others that are thriving alongside us, and capitalizing on the changes we’ve wrought.
Mississippi kites are a prime local example. In recent decades, these historically eastern raptors have colonized West Texas cities. They’re fascinating birds, but can sometimes make for prickly neighbors.
Mississippi kites are slender and elegant, with 3-foot wingspans and plumage that fades from black to a pale gray-white. They once summered mostly in the Southeast, nesting in deciduous trees. But as people brought those trees to the Texas plains, the kites followed. Now, they’re regular summer residents of Midland, Lubbock and Amarillo.
Clint Boal is a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and Texas Tech University who’s studied the birds.
“We're supposed to be dispassionate and distanced in our research,” Boal said. “The reality is I go out and I see a kite that's got a color band on it, and I get the read and I get a little bit of a thrill and this kind of heartwarming thing that, ‘Good for you! You survived another year. I'm really happy to see you again.’”
Boal’s appreciation is understandable. The kites that arrive here in spring have traveled more than 5,000 miles, from Argentina and Brazil. They’re monogamous, and Boal has documented pairs returning to the same nesting sites in Lubbock for 10 years in a row.
But as impressive as they are, they’re not universally beloved. The kites have a reputation for aggression. They’re here to raise young, and may dive-bomb a person they perceive to be threatening the nest. Boal himself has had a ball cap plucked off his head by a Mississippi kite.
There was a particularly ornery pair that nested for years on the Texas Tech campus.
“My students ended up naming them Ivan and Ivana,” Boal said, “because they were just terrible, terrible birds. I mean, these birds, they took it to you. What nobody knew about though were the 17 other nests that were on campus that never bothered anybody. But boy, that one pair was known far and wide.”
These notorious kites are the exception. Birds have personalities, and some are meaner than others. But humans often contributes to producing an aggressive kite.
Boal once received a call about a hostile kite pair. When he arrived at the scene, he discovered that children had been harassing the birds, throwing all manner of objects at their nest. Those kites remained touchy for years to come.
“We had to watch them for a couple of years,” Boal said. “They were kind of aggressive if you stopped and looked up at the nest. If you didn't look up, if you just kind of kept walking, which most people do, there was never a problem.”
Golf courses can be scenes of conflict. Kites nesting along fairways aren’t an issue – golfers move through those areas quickly, and don’t worry the birds. Tee boxes and putting greens are a different story.
“They’re standing around,” Boal said of golfers at these spots, “they're having a beer, they're joking with each other, and if you're near a nest, you're taking too long to move on. And if there's a nest right there, it increases the probability of a kite becoming aggressive and doing a swoop.”
Mississippi kites eat grasshoppers, locusts and other crop-damaging insects, making them economically beneficial. Boal said West Texans can give them their space, and coexist with them.
However we feel about Mississippi kites, their presence here is a reminder of the tenacity of the wild.
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