With an unmistakable silhouette, the Swallow-tailed Kite is an amazingly skilled flyer. From Cornell’s All About Birds: “Rarely flapping their wings, they soar and make tight turns, rotating their tail to steer.”
These images are cropped quite a bit; I didn’t get any close ups, but if you enlarge the photos you can get a bit more detail.
Guaranteed to make your neck hurt they are very cool to watch.
While doing all this acrobatic flying they grab flying insects with their feet:
Then pass the prey to their beak:
On this day an approaching storm and boisterous clouds added to the drama of the scene.
Their territory and numbers have dwindled in the US, and are continuously threatened by habitat loss.
