Mississippi Kite Bonanza, Delaware and Nearby Maryland, June 3-4, 2021

A late May and early June 2021 trip to the Mid-Atlantic and New England states gave me an opportunity to add a few species to my statelists in the region.  Although the primary focus was to visit relatives, there’s always time to squeeze in at least a little birding.  Since I used to live in the area my statelists there are pretty good, but there are usually at least a few targets to hope for – often there is a rarity or two that might be around when I’m in town, and occasionally a few remaining regular species that I haven’t yet run into. 

Our first stops were in PA where I added Trumpeter Swan to my list, and RI where I added Atlantic Puffin (see my earlier blog posts for summaries of these sightings).  Then it was on to visit relatives in northern Delaware.  As on my earlier stops, I pulled up an eBird Needs Alert and was surprised to see numerous reports of Mississippi Kites in DE.  As it turns out, this is the year for Brood X of the 17-Year Cicadas to hatch out, and there were numerous Kites that went north of their regular range, coming to the area to take advantage of this abundant food source.  There were pictures on-line of Kites capturing, and then eating, cicadas on the wing just like they do with dragonflies in their regular range. 

Here’s a picture of several cicadas hatching out on one part of one tree in just one morning.

And another picture of the ground below with all the shed skins of those that hatched out on previous days.

There was one DE spot in particular where up to a dozen MIKIs were spotted feeding – in Newark conveniently within 30 minutes of my brother’s house.  The spot was on Casho Mill Road over fields behind an elementary school.  This location was less than a mile from the MD stateline, and since I needed them for my MD list as well, I wondered if they were also being seen in MD.  Sure enough, there was a site just over2 miles away as the Kite flies in Elkton, MD where another feeding flock was being seen.  And not to be greedy, but this area was also less than a mile from the PA stateline – could there be a feeding flock just across the line in PA as well?  Unfortunately, eBird showed that there were only occasional Kite sightings at random locations in southeastern PA, none apparently chaseable.  I’d have to be content with 2 states out of 3.  My plan was first to pursue the DE birds and then try for the MD birds the next day.

A few hours after rolling into town on June 3 I mentioned the Mississippi Kites to my brother.  He was interested in seeing them as well, and was familiar with the elementary school where they were being seen.  So late in the afternoon we headed off to give them a try.  (We timed our trip to be late enough in the day so that everyone would be gone from the school – didn’t want anyone to question why people were walking around the school grounds with binoculars.)  Just after we arrived, we saw a birder out in the field pointing to the sky.  We looked up and there was an immature Mississippi Kite flying by.  A quick but good view, but we were hoping for more.  Not seeing any more birds overhead, we walked a bit farther and spotted some activity in the trees just beyond the fields.  We had one, then two, then more Kites perched in the trees.  We had at least 4 in view in each of 2 trees.  Here’s a distant picture of one of the subadult birds taken by holding my phone up to my binoculars.

We even saw a Crow catching cicadas on the wing doing its best Kite imitation.

Then on the morning of June 5th I was off to try to find Mississippi Kites in MD.  But along the way I made a few stops at White Clay Creek State Park nearby hoping for Yellow-throated Vireos.  That’s one of the few regular birds I still needed for my DE list, and there were a number of YTVI reports from various parts of the park this spring.  So even though I was optimistic, I unfortunately came up short at this very birdy spot.  Maybe I would have had better luck hearing them without the roar of the cicadas. 

Next it was off to Hillwood Road in Elkton, MD where there were double-digit reports of Kites feeding over the fields in the area.  When I arrived, it was still pretty cool and overcast - not the best conditions to see Kites hawking overhead.  So I wasn’t too surprised that I didn’t see any Kites in the air.  After a few minutes I thought about my experience the day before in DE when I was able to find several birds perched in nearby trees.  So I started scanning the trees in the yards near the fields and eventually spotted some movement – sure enough it was a Kite flying among the trees.  With a bit more scanning I found several birds flying through or just above the canopy presumably catching cicadas just as they took off from the trees.  Most surprisingly, at one point I saw a pair copulating, and a third bird carrying a stick as if it were nest building.  It’s not likely that they will stay in the area and nest, but then again sometimes birds that overshoot their normal ranges will colonize those new areas.  I ended up with at least 5 birds visible at one time in the trees.  And got these passable photos through my binoculars of one bird nicely perched, and a pair in another tree. 

But my Mississippi Kite story wasn’t over.  The next day, soon after starting our long drive home to NC, we were passing through northeastern MD on I-95 and there was another Mississippi Kite catching cicadas over the highway.  Quite a nice exclamation point to the trip.

Mississippi Kite was #277 for my DE list and #332 for my MD list.  Those are the 6th and 7th states where I’ve seen this species as a rarity (the brown-shaded states in my statebird map below).  The blue states are those where I’ve seen it in its regular range; the cross-hatched states are the last 2 in its normal range where I’ve yet to see it.