The swallow-tailed kite

As I started this blog I wrote that I will often wonder what it will become (1st entry).   Thus making an honest admission that I didn't know what I was doing.  I didn't have any expectations or a plan, but I did have something to say.  I was curious to see how I would express it. 

For now, my blog has become an commentary on the features within the natural world that I feel have a certain magic.  As with most, if not all, nature writers I hope my contributions inspire a greater reverence toward a deeper stewardship of this beautiful world.

That being said,  the swallow-tailed kite provides the magic of which I speak  in an undeniable fashion.  

I take pictures of the kites everytime I see them in the sky;  Lots of pictures - good ones, bad ones, better ones.  One day while driving I saw a group of about 10 kites working a field together.   Almost startled by them, I quickly pulled a u-turn coming back to an aerial ballet.  Here are some of the images from that 30 minute spellbinding experience. 

They were after a swarm of bugs or something in the grass; swooping about and diving toward the ground.

For me, at this point , spellbound is not an exageration.  The ease at which the kites carve a path through the sky is an amazing ability.  Just a tiny, almost impercebtible, tilt of their adept tail sends them on a significant course alteration - as if by a natural and very real magic.  (where is the video BDay??)

  Amazing, they are -  truly, truly the otters of the sky.

To torque that tail and jet after your quarry -  swoosh!   These maurauders snatch their food on the fly.  Biologists use the term "gleaners" to categorize their feeding habit.  After the snatch  they eat on the fly too.   

The swallow tailed kite -  a truly inspring creature.  Remaining suspended in flight for long periods with no perceptible movement.  Radically changing trajectory as if by commanding the wind to adjust.  So adept, so quiet, so agile within the stillness of their effortless grace.  A person need only stare at them in flight for a few moments be fixated on their grace.  Making self-evident that the affairs of humans are not the sole, central theme of our time here on earth.   Rick Scott can you hear me ?!