Flying Kites

Swallow-tailed Kites have returned this year. As I look to the sky, I can't help but be reminded of their relatively benign namesakes and wonder: is this rural patch of central Florida land their Capistrano? Certainly it's not true for the species, but perhaps these most recent denizens of our subtropical biome are descended from those I've seen before. If nothing else, it is possible.

They’ve been a rarity in my recent memory. I can recall only sporadic instances from so many years past. Yet, I can recall each as vividly as any of the sharpest memories archived in my consciousness. The extent may be no more than a fleeting moment of recognition whereupon I glimpsed the sharp, dark, inverted V of tailfeathers, spiraling swiftly, silently, above my head. But the image is as clear and large in my mind as the newest digital camera could capture. I suppose the more seldom the occurrence, the more infrequent the experience, the more permanently ingrained the memory.

The Swallow-tails glide in elegance, never too far from water, skimming in search of sustenance across canopies of slash pine, cabbage palm, and the occasional laurel oak. Perhaps an inobservant cicada will fall victim, maybe a careless dragonfly perched on a palm frond high aloft. With any luck for the kite, not to mention any concerned native inhabitant of Florida, they’ll dine lavishly on the brown anoles who have invaded from Cuba and established themselves as the most prevalent lizard in the lower peninsula. I can not say for sure where my hopes lie for my kite’s next meal. As much as I would like to see the anole put in check, the mosquitoes eternally plague me.

But all living creatures within the kite's perceptual radius must be mindful. The kite is a raptor, a skillful avian predator with a less than discriminating palate. Size and location are the only real variables restricting the kite's menu. Invertebrates of all kinds and vertebrates, whether scaled or plumed, all are potential prey for the kite.

The Swallow-tailed Kite’s masterful acrobatics and skillful soaring can often make it's brethren aloft look clumsy and graceless by comparison. Once, they could be seen in the skies across the whole of the midwestern and southern United States skillfully climbing invisible thermals, majestically soaring, playfully displaying an almost unrivaled acrobatic proclivity. That is until their ubiquitous neighbor, mankind, vacillating between nemesis and benefactor, intervened. Deforestation of habitat, a hunter's bullet, the omnipresence of that most foul and contemptible torture device, monofilament fishing line, these all have been the bane of the kite. Now, we Floridians share our appreciation for the Swallow-tailed kite only with our South American and Carribbean neighbors.

I know that it's the end of the season here for the kites. Soon, no later than the end of the month, they'll be making their first and most dangerous leg of their flight, an interpeninsular ocean crossing from Florida to Yucatan with only a brief layover in Cuba. It won't be long before they again discover the rich and bountiful forests of Brazil. I imagine that a few months from now, somewhere deep within the interior of South America, perhaps along the banks of the Rio Amazonas, I have a counterpart who will, just as I have, look to the sky and remark with a note of joy, “The swallow-tail kites have returned this year.”