New and Familiar Feathers; Eleven Swallow-tailed Kites begin migrating north

Before we kick off this season’s Swallow-tailed Kite Northbound Migration blog series, we want to recognize all the members of our Swallow-tailed Kite Tracking Program. We are currently tracking eleven individuals: six new kites, all tagged in the summer of 2017, and five veterans tagged between 2011 and 2016. With each passing year and new addition to the program, we expand our understanding of the complex lives and needs of these fascinating raptors. The 11 Swallow-tailed Kites are listed in chronological order by tagging date.

Remembering each tagging experience (clockwise from top left):
Panther, Sawgrass, MIA, Apopka, Bogue Falaya, Palmetto.

Palmetto: Palmetto is a true champion! Tagged in June 2011 in Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina, she has been tracked for nearly seven years, the longest we have followed any Swallow-tailed Kite since we began this program in 1996.

MIA: Not far behind for tracking duration is MIA, who was tagged in June 2012 in Miami-Dade County, Florida. This year’s pilgrimage to his nesting grounds in Miami will complete six migratory cycles for MIA – that’s over 60,000 miles. Amazing!

Lacombe: Lacombe was tagged in July 2015 by our project partner Dr. Jennifer Coulson, President and Conservation Chair of Orleans Audubon Society. Previous kites tagged by Dr. Coulson migrated over land along the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico. However, for the past two northbound migrations, Lacombe flew north from Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula directly to Louisiana. Will he do the same this year?

Panther: Panther was tagged at the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge in Collier County, Florida, in June 2016. Last year, she persevered through strong northerly winds in the Gulf of Mexico to return to her nesting grounds. Hopefully the weather will instead facilitate the kites' return this year.

Sawgrass: This Swallow-tailed Kite is not averse to city life. Sawgrass was tagged in June 2016 at Sawgrass Lake Park in St. Petersburg, Florida, one of the few green spaces peppering this densely-developed island. In the winter months, she trades bustling urban centers for the remote ranchlands of southern Brazil.

Bogue Falaya: Bogue Falaya was tagged in Louisiana last May by Dr. Jennifer Coulson. Dr. Coulson shares with us her experience trapping and tagging Bogue Falaya in this blog.

Refuge: Refuge is the second bird we have tagged at the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge in Collier County, Florida. Her nest was deep in the heart of the NWR. It was quite an undertaking to get gear and our trusty owl to the site on a 45-minute swamp buggy ride. She received his transmitter in May 2017.

Sarasota: Sarasota was tagged in June 2017 at T. Mabry Carlton Preserve in Sarasota County, Florida. County staff and local birders were instrumental in locating and monitoring the Swallow-tailed Kite nests in the area (special thanks to Debbie Blanco of Sarasota County). We had a successful evening capture and now Sarasota is sporting a new transmitter as well.

Babcock: Babcock was tagged in June 2017 at Babcock Ranch Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Glades County, Florida. We had last minute permission and a one-day-only trapping window to try to capture and tag a bird at this WMA. Luckily, the stars aligned and Babcock flew off with a new radio, the first of our tagged kites to cross the Gulf of Mexico on their southbound migrations.

Wilson: Wilson was tagged in June 2017 at Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina. In the 2017 breeding season, he frequented the same areas as Palmetto. If they both return, will she choose him as a partner this nesting season?

Apopka: Apopka has a unique story. Needing rehabilitation after a car collision, he recovered quickly with the help of the wonderful folks at Avian Reconditioning Center (ARC) in Apopka, Florida. With the amazing fund-raising efforts of ARC’s Paula Ashby and the generous contributions of Audubon chapters, kind individuals and the City of Apopka, ARCI had the means to deploy a transmitter on Apopka in July 2017, who started his southbound migration just ahead of Hurricane Irma. Read his full story here.

We have many people and organizations to thank for their generous monetary and logistical support of the Swallow-tailed Kite tracking program:

Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge

Friends of the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge

Carlton Ward Jr.

Will Randal

Stephanie Green

Mark Danaher

T. M Mabry Carlton Reserve, Sarasota Co.

Deborah Blanco

Erin Myers

Hans Mooyman

Gabe Vargo

Judi Hopkins

St. Petersburg Audubon Society

Dr. Jennifer Coulson

Friends of the Conservancy

Palmetto Bluff Conservancy

Peace River Audubon Society

Sarasota Audubon Society

Friends of the Carlton Reserve

The City of Apopka

Avian Reconditioning Center (Carol and Scott McCorkle)

Audubon Center for Birds of Prey (Diana Flynt)
Halifax Audubon Society

Oklawaha Audubon Society

Seminole County Audubon Society

Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue

Clearwater Audubon Society

West Volusia Audubon Society

Deborah Green

Janet Marks

Eileen Tramontana

Sandie Selman

Disney Volunteers from ARC, Rebecca Grimm and Alyssa Karnitz

Bogue Falaya's Debut from the Bayou

Dr. Jennifer Coulson, President and Conservation Chair of the Orleans Audubon Society, studies population and nesting ecology of Swallow-tailed Kites in Louisiana and Mississippi. She’s also a long-time colleague and friend to ARCI. Dr. Coulson captured and tagged Swallow-tailed Kites Slidell, PearlMS, Pasc, and Strong River, who have since stopped transmitting, and Lacombe, who’s in his third year of tracking. She uses the same trapping technique we’ve carefully developed over the years to safely capture Swallow-tailed Kites – a strategically placed mist net and a lure bird. ARCI’s favorite lure is Trapper, a disabled educational Great Horned Owl, who has worked with us for over a decade. 

Dr. Coulson recounts her exciting experience tagging Swallow-tailed Kite Bogue Falaya with her husband Tom Coulson:

“We trapped Bogue Falaya a stone’s throw from the Bogue Falaya River, one of Louisiana’s Natural and Scenic Rivers, in a forested subdivision. The river flows through pine and bottomland hardwood forests, ideal habitat for Swallow-tailed Kites. Three pairs of Swallow-tailed Kites are known to inhabit a nesting “neighborhood” along the river.

Bogue Falaya's striking profile.

With permission, we set up our trapping equipment on a lawn near one of those known nests. Only 12 minutes after the owl was in place and the nets were opened, the Bogue Falaya male made a bold, earthbound dive in an attempt to drive the owl away from its nest. In doing so, he encountered the net and unwittingly became part of our kite tracking and suburban nest studies.

Tom Coulson displays Bogue
 Falaya's new transmitter.

The kite’s banding measurements and soiled undertail coverts indicated that it was probably male, but we took a small blood sample for DNA sexing just to be sure. The usually-white undertail coverts were soiled from hauling food; males tend to hunt farther from the nest and thus spend more time carrying food than females. Although robust, Bogue Falaya was somewhat small, also suggesting this bird is a male. In raptors, females tend to be the larger sex.

Once Bogue Falaya was tagged and identifiable, we observed his behavior to determine which nest he tended. Four days after tagging him, we watched him deliver a green anole to one of the nests in the neighborhood. Bingo! Bogue Falaya and his mate successfully fledged two healthy-looking young."

Fatherhood completed, Bogue Falaya left his nesting grounds on 19 Aug 2017 and, unlike the kites from Florida who cross the Gulf of Mexico, made his way over land by way of Mexico and Central America to overwinter in Brazil. Winter (actually summer in Brazil) came and went, and on 22 Jan 2018, Bogue Falaya began to inch northward, indicating an imminent northbound migration.

Bogue Falaya takes to the skies upon release.

Go With the Wind; A Swallow-tailed Kite gets the best migration conditions

WOW! Apopka, the rehabilitated Swallow-tailed Kite with the GPS/GSM-transmitter, made it safely to Central America. Was Apopka lucky, or did it know a change in the weather loomed? We believe it was the latter. Birds detect variation in barometric pressure and other subtle weather characteristics, sensing change well before us humans. We believe Apopka was more ready than ever to begin migrating to South America, and the strong northern winds on the west side of Hurricane Irma came just at the right time.

Since 5 August, Apopka had been feeding, fattening, and preparing for 5,000 miles of migration in a remote portion of Brevard County, Florida. On 6 September, just three days before the brunt of Hurricane Irma ravaged the area, Apopka headed south. Hurricanes are low-pressure weather systems that circulate in a counter-clockwise direction. The immense size of this storm resulted in favorable winds over a large portion of Florida, and Apopka took advantage of the opportunity. 

On the first night after leaving its roosting/foraging area in Brevard County, Apopka stayed in St. Lucia County, continuing to Big Cypress National Preserve for last day and night in the United States before leaving the Everglades and heading out to sea from Florida’s southwestern shore on 8 September. The winds were definitely picking up in advance of Hurricane Irma as Apopka crossed the Straits of Florida. It only took four hours, at an average speed of 30 miles per hour, to reach the northern coast of Cuba, near Veradaro. By this time, Hurricane Irma was a Category 5 Hurricane and just 200 miles away. 

The sustained southbound winds carried Apopka across the width of Cuba to the southwestern part of the Zapata Peninsula, which is a large, protected natural area where swamp forests and wetlands meet coastal marshes. Twenty-four hours later, the eye of Irma passed over Veradero with sustained winds of  125 mph while Apopka, only 80 miles away, held tight through maximum winds of 50 mph.  Apopka stayed on the Zapata Peninsula through more stormy weather for seven days, then spent two nights on the Isle of Youth (Isla de Juventud) off the southwestern coast gaining strength and fat reserves to complete the ocean crossing to the Yucatán Peninsula. 

Apopka made that final ocean crossing on 17 September with a safe landfall in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, 18 hours later. Having since followed tracks similar to all the Swallow-tailed Kites before it, it is already in Honduras.

The hard part is over for Apopka, the remaining migration is all over land. This rehabilitated bird’s survival is a true success story with or without a major hurricane (see our blog posted on 1 September 2017). We are so happy that Apopka is doing well, and grateful to the rehabilitators at Avian Reconditioning Center for investing their time, resources, and practiced care in this once-injured Swallow-tailed Kite. We particularly thank Carol McCorkle and Paula Ashby. 

Generous donations towards the cost of the tagging operation, transmitter, and data acquisition came from:

The City of Apopka - Mayor Joe Kilsheimer

Halifax Audubon - David Hartgrove

Oklawaha Audubon - Stacy Kelly

Seminole County Audubon - Lewis Gray, Margaret Terwilliger, Sarah Donlan

Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue - Barbara Walker

Clearwater Audubon - matching the challenge issued by Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue

West Volusia Audubon - Stephen Kintner

Deborah Green from Orange Audubon (personal donation)

Janet Marks from West Volusia Audubon (personal donation)

Eileen Tramontana, Director of Trout Lake Nature Center (personal donation)

Sandie Selman from West Volusia Audubon (personal donation)

Disney Volunteers from ARC, Rebecca Grimm and Alyssa Karnitz

Who stayed, who left? Where our birds are after Hurricane Irma

Were you able to catch ARCI’s Executive Director, Dr. Ken Meyer, on a panel of researchers talking about how Hurricane Irma could have affected Florida’s imperiled species? Ken was interviewed on National Public Radio’s Science Friday on 15 September.  Here’s a link to the segment, in case you missed it:

How Hurricane Irma could affect Florida's endangered species

We would like to share some great news about our remotely-tracked birds that were in the path of Hurricane Irma in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, the Florida Keys, and throughout the Florida Peninsula.   We are getting normal-looking movement data on all but a few of the birds!  Those we have not heard from include one White-crowned Pigeon on Grand Bahama and another that had just migrated to Cuba ahead of the storm.  We will keep watching for signals from these birds.

Six Gulf Coast Reddish Egrets (five in Lee County on J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge and well north in Dixie County) stayed in place for the storm and, based on their movements compared with pre-hurricane days, appear to be doing well.  The single Magnificent Frigatebird we are tracking at this time, an adult from the only U. S. breeding colony in the Dry Tortugas that spends this part of the year off the Gulf coast of Citrus County, Florida, rode out the storm over the Gulf. He headed west and then south on the cyclonic flow that eventually carried this bird along a 600-mile loop that brought it right back to its favorite near-shore roosting island.

The four satellite-tracked Snail Kites sat tight in south Florida wetlands. The same is true for the Short-tailed Hawk we recently tagged in St. Petersburg, Florida, which promptly returned to its nesting forest at Sawgrass Lake Park.

The GSM/GPS-tracked Swallow-tailed Kite Apopka had the best migratory conditions on the north winds carried in with Irma.  He covered ground fast and got to the south coast of Cuba the night before the storm hit Cuba’s north coast.  He remains in Cuba still today.

Location of 37 remotely-tracked birds after Hurricane Irma had passed. The two yellow "Missing" markers refer to two White-crowned Pigeons from whom we have not yet received data.

We will be flying this week and again soon after to check on our VHF radio-tagged Southeastern American Kestrels, Snail Kites, and 12 more White-crowned Pigeons.  This also will be our best opportunity to assess habitat impacts on all our study populations.  We’ll also be elaborating on each species’ immediate responses to Hurricane Irma in the upcoming blog stories.  We are amazed at their resilience!  More soon.

No where to go. How will our birds cope with Hurricane Irma?

In preparation for Hurricane Irma, we evacuated field sites in the Florida Keys and coastal south Florida, moved boats and field crew to northern latitudes, and fortified our homes. We know that many of our supporters and those who will read this blog have been affected by this massive storm and we hope that you stayed as safe as possible.

Of course, something we cannot personally protect from a hurricane are wild birds, including the ones we tag and study. Severe weather such as this presents us with interesting, unplanned opportunities.  With satellite, cell-phone, and old-fashioned radio tracking, ARCI is following 37 individual birds of seven species, a rare and valuable chance to learn how they weather this hurricane and respond to its profound impacts on the many habitats, special places, and landscapes that support their day-to-day lives. Some birds will perish in the extreme conditions. Some will lose resources essential in the near term, or suffer higher risks of mortality or impaired reproduction, long after the storm passes. Others may begin their seasonal migrations only to be forced to take up novel routes that prove threatening or take them to unsuitable wintering destinations.  Others may accomplish the impossible, against all odds, and survive in spite of the enormous scale of the damage, giving us some hope that wild birds will be resilient enough to cope with nature, and with all we do to jeopardize their continued existence.

The 37 birds telling us these stories are the ones we’ve carefully captured, tagged, and tracked with the support many of you have generously provided, including Swallow-tailed Kites, Snail Kites, Magnificent Frigatebirds, Reddish Egrets, Southeastern American Kestrels, White-crowned Pigeons, and a Short-tailed Hawk.

Most of our Swallow-tailed Kites are in Central and South America now, but there are some lingering in Florida, including “Apopka”, a cell phone/GPS-tracked bird that we featured in our last blog.  We hope Apopka was encouraged to begin migrating by the strong northern tailwinds on the leading edge of the advancing hurricane. We are watching closely and hope to have more for you soon.

Four of the seven species we are tracking in the Florida peninsula will not migrate: eight Snail Kites tagged in south-central Florida (satellite and VHF radio transmitters), a single Short-tailed Hawk fitted with a cell-phone/GPS device in St. Petersburg, six Reddish Egrets from coastal Lee and Dixie counties tracked with satellite/GPS technology, and four young Southeastern American Kestrels tagged with tiny VHF transmitters in Hillsborough County. We can only hope they will find a good perch and hang on, or take to the air and evade - or endure - the most extreme conditions. Although we do not know what strategies they employ, or which work best, we have learned from past experiences to expect some surprises when tracking birds that encounter exceptionally severe weather. For instance, we watched in 2016 as one of our tagged Magnificent Frigatebirds in the northern Gulf of Mexico off Citrus County, Florida, traveled very rapidly on winds generated by Hurricane Hermine to take refuge well inland in southern Georgia. We are eager to see how this same bird responded to Hurricane Irma.

Of all the birds we are presently tracking, we are most concerned about seven White-crowned Pigeons we tagged with satellite transmitters on their breeding ranges over the last three years for a range-wide study of this species of conservation concern. Two confronted Irma’s 180 mile per hour winds in Puerto Rico, two from Florida encountered the hurricane in northern Cuba, and two more had similar challenges in Jamaica and the Bahamas. The last remained in Florida. We will know soon how these birds have fared.

Just as Hurricane Irma began developing last week, we were in the process of placing small VHF transmitters (tracked by hand in real time) on 12 White-crowned Pigeons in South Florida and Keys. One purpose of this study is to link the most significant mangrove-island breeding colonies of these birds with their specific hardwood-hammock foraging destinations, thereby enabling wildlife managers to prioritize protection of the most important patches of this rapidly disappearing hardwood forest. Because these transmitters cannot be tracked remotely, the fates of these birds could remain a mystery for some time after Irma’s passage.

We hope you and yours safely endured Hurricane Irma, and that you will join us in hoping that as many birds as possible have done the same.

Finally, we are very grateful for all the generous support we have received from organizations, foundations, private individuals, and government agencies to make ARCI’s challenging and important telemetry research possible. They include: Sanibel-Captive Audubon Society; International Osprey Foundation; Felburn Foundation; St. Petersburg Audubon Society; Venice Audubon Society; The Florida Aquarium; West Volusia Audubon Society; Seminole County Audubon Society; Sarasota County Audubon Society; Bailey Wildlife Foundation; Quest Ecology, Inc., Tortuga Foundation; U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), including the Southeast Region’s Division of Migratory Birds, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge; Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuge Complex; Ding Darling Wildlife Society; Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission; Microwave Telemetry, Inc.; Friends of the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy (South Carolina); Palmetto Bluff Conservancy; Friends of the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge; Friends and Volunteers of the Florida Keys Refuges; U. S. Geological Survey; North Port Friends of Wildlife; Subaru of Gainesville; Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund; Avian Reconditioning Center; National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; Gulf of Mexico Institute; City of Apopka; Halifax Audubon Society; Oklawaha Audubon Society; Clearwater Audubon Society; Orange Audubon Society; Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue;  and individuals including Judy Samelson, Bill Schwabel, Jim Griffith, Margo McKnight, David Hartgrove, Deborah Green, Janet Marks, Eileen Tramontana, Barbara Walker, Joni Ellis, Tom and Laura Hansen, Barbara Brown, Paula Powell, Bill Todman Jr., Bev and Al Hansen, Fred Lohrer, Gary and Susie Zimmerman, Kathryn Palmore, Joyce King, Gary and Joanne Grunau, Tom Staley, Lucille, Lane, Deb Levine, Tim Harrell, Sandy Selman, Rebecca Grimm, and Alyssa Karnitz.

A Swallow-tailed Kite’s second chance gives back to science

In mid-July, an adult Swallow-tailed Kite was admitted to Audubon’s Center for Birds of Prey with trauma injuries after being hit by a vehicle.  With some quiet rest, this kite improved quickly and was transported to the Avian Reconditioning Center (ARC) in Apopka.  Here the Kite joined two other Swallow-tailed Kites in a 100-ft flight cage to exercise and prepare for release.

Carol McCorkle, ARC’s Director, connected with us at ARCI to say this healthy Swallow-tailed Kite would be released the following weekend. Carol wondered if we might want to put a cell-phone/GPS transmitter on the kite prior to release.  Although this was an exciting offer, and we had just received a few of these amazing devices from the manufacturer, we told Carol we had not yet raised enough funds to pay for transmitters and to deploy them.  We try to keep a few transmitters on hand for when land managers or conservation groups have an interest in seeing a bird tagged and the funds to cover purchase of the transmitter and the costs for capturing, tagging, and tracking a bird.

Paula Ashby of ARC sprang into fund raising action! Within 48 hours, she was able to raise the necessary interest and financial support from the surrounding community to make the GPS-tagging possible. Thank you so much, Paula!  For their confidence and generosity, ARCI and ARC are grateful to:

The City of Apopka - Mayor Joe Kilsheimer

Halifax Audubon - David Hartgrove

Oklawaha Audubon - Stacy Kelly

Seminole County Audubon - Lewis Gray, Margaret Terwilliger, Sarah Donlan

Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue - Barbara Walker

Clearwater Audubon - matching the challenge issued by Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue

West Volusia Audubon - Stephen Kintner

Deborah Green from Orange Audubon (personal donation)

Janet Marks from West Volusia Audubon (personal donation)

Eileen Tramontana, Director of Trout Lake Nature Center (personal donation)

Sandie Selman from West Volusia Audubon (personal donation)

Disney Volunteers from ARC - $100 each - Rebecca Grimm and Alyssa Karnitz

You all know that this work can be very difficult and often demoralizing. No doubt you also can imagine how gratifying it is to see birds reconditioned and released by ARC knowing that they will contribute to ARCI’s long term studies of movement ecology and conservation biology. We hope you also know how gratifying it is to have your confidence and generosity in pursuing this mission we all share. Thank you all very much!

We had a great crowd of supporters at the release of this now famous Swallow-tailed Kite and the other two kites.  We name Swallow-tailed Kites after a location they are associated with, and since we were releasing the Kite at the Lake Apopka North Shore Restoration Area it was fitting to name it “Apopka”. We took a feather sample from Apopka and will send to a lab to learn whether it is a male or female, so stay tuned for that information (place names honor the locations that are so important to birds, but they also are conveniently gender-neutral!)

The release went very well! All three reconditioned birds took to the sky and drifted east out of sight beyond the trees.  The Lake Apopka North Shore Restoration Area is famous for Swallow-tailed Kites at this time of year, providing ample insect prey for these birds to prepare for their exceptionally long migration.  Hundreds of kites at a time can be seen swooping and diving on prey that they catch and eat in the air.

As expected, Apopka is taking the time now to gather fat and strength before it migrates across the Gulf of Mexico on its way to south-central South America for our winter. Already, Apopka has visited some of the most common roost and foraging sites for Swallow-tailed Kites.  After traveling over 200 miles, this Swallow-tailed Kite is now in a remote portion of Brevard County. We wish Apopka the best of foraging and resting opportunities as it prepares for its long journey. 

Our hearty thanks to all who made this opportunity possible, and to all who enjoy these amazing stories and spread the word about the wonders of bird migration.

Three cheers for Sawgrass, Palmetto, and Lacombe

After 18 days of radio silence, Sawgrass reappeared – in Honduras! Her previous fixes were in Brazil, where she was slowly edging her way north through areas with little or no cell phone coverage. Sawgrass recently moved through the city of Los Leones, Honduras and, like most kites, will skip Guatemala in favor of a quick over-water flight to Belize. She will be the last of our tracked Swallow-tailed Kites to cross the Gulf of Mexico.

Locations of our GPS-tracked Swallow-tailed Kites as of 1 April 2017. 

MIA and Panther are both safely back home in South Florida. MIA has already found a mate and started nesting. We suspect Panther is doing the same. Here's how MIA crossed the gulf.

After losing Bullfrog in an arduous flight over the Gulf of Mexico, we worried over each next kite that followed. We were glad to see Panther make it despite ever-changing winds that zig-zagged her course and prolonged her crossing. The strong northerly winds that prevailed for Bullfrog, and probably countless other migrating Swallow-tailed Kites and birds, finally relented. On 22 March, Palmetto became the fourth of our six tagged kites to start the journey across the Gulf. She flew due north with ease thanks to widespread southerly winds, reaching Mississippi on 25 March. She then worked her way east, weaving through Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina to settle within meters of her 2016 nesting area.

Lacombe reached the northeast coast of the Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on 24 March, just two days behind Palmetto. The winds pushed him swiftly across to Louisiana in one day. After reaching land south of Morgan City, he wasted no time heading back to the east shore of Lake Pontchartrain near his namesake city of Lacombe, Louisiana.

Lacombe (green) and Palmetto (white) crossed the Gulf of Mexico with favorable winds. They returned home to their nesting areas in Louisiana and South Carolina, respectively.