Day 149: May 28th – A Rare Visit

Sunny, Warm (mid-80s) and calm

       It’s a beautiful Memorial Day.  We have had reports over the past several days of a rare Mississippi kite being seen at the parking lot of Sterling Forest State Park.  This bird is normally found considerably south and west of us with its northern extreme range extending into North Carolina and occasionally Virginia.  The bird has been recorded in the center of New York near Cooperstown in a small village called Root and has actually bred there over the past two years.  This is the first record in Orange County, however, so it has created quite a stir.

       We arrived on site at around 11:00 AM after cheering our grandson on at his baseball game.  He pitched well, and we took that to be an omen that the rest of the day would also produce positive results.  When we got to the area at Sterling Forest, we were greeted by a dozen or so members of our bird club as well as several birder/photographers from New York City.  Word spreads fast in this digital age.  We were told that the kite had in fact been at the site around 9:00 but had not been seen since.  We settled in and began to wait the kite out.  And wait we did…..over 4 hours of scanning the skies until around 3:00 PM one of our number called out,
“There’s the bird!”  Everyone grabbed cameras and binoculars to see this rare visitor and to our amazement, we had not one but two kites!  Reports yesterday said that the bird apparently had nesting material in its bill, raising the possibility of a nest being built.  But up until today, only one bird had been seen.  

       Will this pair actually nest here in Orange County.  Is the pair in fact a male/female pair?   From the photos, one of the birds at least looks like a juvenile raising more questions about potential nesting.  We will follow the progress of this  pair of rarities and see what develops.  Stay tuned!

Soaring Mississippi kite