Kite migration

Kite migration has started here in Veracruz, with a decent first push on the first couple of days of the count (as noted in the previous post). Interestingly, the first hawk watch north of us - Hazel Bazemore just outside Corpus Christi, TX - is reporting good recent flights of Swallow-tailed Kites (pictured below), while their numbers of Mississippi Kites (pictured above) so far are lagging behind.

This is in marked contrast with what we down here in Veracruz have been seeing so far.

After three days of counting, we had seen almost 5,000 Mississippi Kites, while our number of Swallow-tailed Kites was 53 in the first three days. Compare that to a running total of 90 Mississippi Kites versus 113 Swallow-tailed Kites for Hazel Bazemore during the period 15-19 August. It's unusual for them (as it would be for us) to have more Swallow-taileds than Mississippi's. Note that our Veracruz numbers are really of two sites combined, Cardel and Chichicaxtle.

Since we're about 600 miles / 1,000 km south of them, one wonders if perhaps they missed that first push of Mississippi Kites, which possibly occurred just days before their count started. Good to see though that their numbers of Swallow-tailed Kites are so high - that bodes well for us. We can expect Swallow-tailed Kite numbers to build again rapidly to a peak in about a week or so.