Elegant Elanus

February 7^th, 2024 ~ I had headed to Galveston Island State Park, thinking that this chilly afternoon might be a great opportunity to wander the trails before the summer’s heat returned.

Portion of the Galveston Island State Park map, showing Clapper Rail Trail

This state park provides a wealth of different habitats all packed into an area only about 1.5 miles wide x 3 miles across. There are bays, bayous, marshy prairies, stunted wind-blasted oak trees, sandy tidal flats, and tidal mud flats. On this day in early February, the high temp hovered in the mid 50’sF, and the breeze was stiff and chill out of the north. I made my way along a path that was new to me, barely more than an eight-inch-wide sandy track through the gray-green winter marsh grass. I had already forded several inch-deep seeps, and my socks squelched with each step. The Park Service provides a great Trail Map, shown in part here, and I used it to pick my way along red-dashed Clapper Rail Trail before it loops.

Just a glimpse of the underside of a white bird
1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 500
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 600mm f/4 + 1.4x TC (850mm total)

I was passing a stand of yaupon and salt cedar, when a bird sailed very low past my right shoulder. This is one of those situations where an off-the-cuff blast from the camera, with little aiming and no settings adjustment was extremely valuable. What had I seen? Let’s see, a medium-sized white bird only a few hundred yards from Galveston Bay. A seagull? No, the head is wrong. Oh, maybe a Mississippi Kite?? I had seen a pair of Mississippi’s a couple years ago, and would be thrilled to see them again. I slogged quickly along the trail to get a closer look.

Those eyes!
1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 500
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 600mm f/4 + 1.4x TC (850mm total)

A pair of lovely white and pearl-gray hawks with the most amazing amber-red eyes calmly watched me from the top of their yaupon perch. Most of you can already see my error, but I was still clueless. Gray and white, dark slate-gray or black “shoulder” patch, shadowed tail, spelled M-I-S-S… Oops.

White from head to tail, with gray back and black “shoulder” patches
1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 500
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 600mm f/4 + 1.4x TC (850mm total)

As the hawks maneuvered to keep their balance in the gusty wind, the one on the left revealed his tail. It was white, not gray as it would be on a Mississippi Kite. I reconsidered that snap-shot of the bird in flight: it had revealed a pure white underside, and a dark gray spot at the “wrist” on the underside of the wing.

These were not Mississippi Kites, they were White-tailed Kites, Elanus leucurus, and I believe they are a new species for me.

White-tailed Kite range map, courtesy of All About Birds

Their feet are butterscotch (ok, the books all say “yellow”), and the cere (the area of the bill around the nostrils) is a pale butter-yellow. Males and females look the same; none of my references (Sibley’s, Peterson’s, Cornell’s) even note any size difference between males and females.  

The White-tailed Kite is a year-round resident across its range. It is found in savannas, prairies, marshes and desert grasslands with isolated shrubs, as well as in agricultural fields. It nests high in trees, often at the edge of forests, or in isolated stands surrounded by open fields. They pair up in early spring, and nest-building starts in February.

Their Genus, “Elanus” is ancient Greek for “kite”, and these birds are known for “kiting”, the habit of hovering with fast wing beats at high elevations (up to around 80 feet) as they search the ground for prey. When they spot something, they fold their wings upward and drop almost straight down, plummeting from the sky toward their target.

Any good snacks down there?
1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 320
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 600mm f/4 + 1.4x TC (850mm total)

One of the birds kept studying the area below. White-tailed Kites eat mostly small mammals, but supplement with small reptiles and amphibians, all of which could easily have been hiding in the dense grass at the base of the yaupon. They occasionally will take small birds, but they do it so rarely that mixed-species feeding flocks rarely startle at their presence. It is unlikely the kites were considering this as a nest location, since they prefer nesting high in tall trees, where the yaupon shrubs were only 10-12 feet tall.

Kites in yaupon shrubs knitted with zig-zag greenbriar
1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 500
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 600mm f/4 + 1.4x TC (850mm total)

In this wide shot, you can see how much I’ve cropped the images. The kites were pretty far away (and yes, I wish I had the new Nikon Z9 feature of measuring distance to your subject). The bird on the left took another good look at the ground.

I was peering over tall marsh grasses and weeds, that fogged the lower portion of the photo. Which gave me an idea. I stepped off the narrow track into the marsh grass, aiming to work my way to the side and forward a bit. Didn’t take me any time at all to recognize my stupidity. The marsh grasses are approximately 4 feet tall, but in the winter, they lay over on themselves in gray whorls of grassy mops, stitched through by those thorny vines with the heart-shaped leaves that you see in all these photos. So, with each step you sink down, down through the tangled grass and thorny vines to settle in 2 inches of water. Instantly, the swirled grass settles over each foot and around each ankle, and bob’s your uncle, you are on your knees, and then on your elbows trying to keep the camera and its lovely (heavy) lens out of the brambles and swamp water. Note to self: Stay on the path.

Pair of kites hunkered down in the wind
1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 500
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 600mm f/4 + 1.4x TC (850mm total)

Yaupon Holly, Ilex vomitoria, is native to the southeastern United States. It is drought tolerant, freeze tolerant, salt tolerant, and can easily be hedged (as has been done on Galveston Island by the prevailing spring and summer winds from the south). The berries are toxic to most mammals, but are eaten by many birds, so it has a place in any bird habitat.

The thorny vine with arrowhead leaves might be a Greenbriar, smilax, but I could be mistaken. According to Foraging Texas, the Greenbriars are the only thorn vines with tendrils, and I think I see a pair at the base of each leaf stem.

White-tailed Kite squinting into the wind
1/2000 sec. f/8 ISO 320
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 600mm f/4 + 1.4x TC (850mm total)

I knew how she felt. My squinting muscles were tired, too. I had enjoyed a good scramble, and had spent time with some stunning birds. As the sun sank toward the horizon, I grinned and headed back over the bridge to the mainland, and home.