Mississippi Kite

Look for

An elegant gray raptor with a pale ghost-white head, darker gray back and wings, and a black, slightly forked tail. From below the wings are long, pointed, and silvery with dark trailing edges. Red eyes. Adults look almost like they're made of smoke.

They fly like no other Memphis raptor: buoyant, floating, circling high overhead on warm afternoons, often catching dragonflies mid-air and eating them on the wing.

Size: ~14" body, ~3 ft wingspan — between a crow and a Red-tailed Hawk.

Listen for

• A high, clear, descending two-note whistle — "phee-phew" — often given in flight.
• Near the nest, a sharp chatter when humans walk too close.

Where in Memphis

The defining raptor of Memphis summer. Mississippi Kites arrive in early May and nest right in the heart of the city — tall pecans, oaks, and pines in Midtown neighborhoods, Downtown parks, and the Mississippi River bluffs. Look up from Tom Lee Park, Overton Park, the I-240 loop, Cooper-Young porches, and Central Gardens backyards on any hot June or July afternoon.

By mid-August, they're forming pre-migration kettles over the bluffs. By early September, they're gone — most to central South America.

Behavior

• Aerial hunters. Kites catch cicadas, dragonflies, grasshoppers, and beetles on the wing. They'll also pluck bats from the sky at dusk and snatch small birds out of mid-air.
• They eat as they fly. Watch one circling with a dragonfly pinned in its talons, methodically tearing pieces free with its beak.
• Colonial-ish nesters. Loose groups of nests in a neighborhood are common. One good pecan can host a pair year after year.
• Dive-bomb defenders. During nesting (mid-June through July), kites will buzz humans who walk too close to the nest tree — close enough to feel the wind off their wings. They rarely make contact but it's unnerving. Memphis joggers know the feeling.

Story & folklore

The city that grew kites

Mississippi Kites were historically bottomland-forest birds of the Deep South's great river floodplains. As those forests were cut and cities grew, the kites pivoted — they now breed across Memphis at higher densities than in the remaining bottomlands. Urban Memphis, with its pecan-lined streets and open sky, is one of the great Mississippi Kite cities in the U.S.

The population in the Memphis metro is estimated in the hundreds of pairs, possibly over a thousand. Most residents have no idea.

The "mosquito hawk" mix-up

In the Delta, people sometimes call kites "mosquito hawks," though actual mosquito hawks are dragonflies. Delta English runs on vibes.

Dive-bombing the Little Leaguers

In the 1990s and 2000s, news stories periodically ran about Memphis Mississippi Kites attacking joggers, golfers, and Little League outfielders — always in late June, always near a nest. A few suburbs tried to relocate nests; wildlife officials mostly explained that the birds would leave on their own in three weeks.

Indigenous names

to research — Chickasaw / Choctaw terms for kites

Fun facts

• Kites are extreme long-distance migrants — Memphis to Paraguay and back every year, roughly 10,000 miles round trip, in a 14-ounce bird.
• A Mississippi Kite's wingbeat looks almost lazy — they ride thermals so well they barely flap.
• They're one of the only raptors that regularly eat bats, grabbing them in the low light after sunset.
• Males and females look identical; young birds are streaky brown-and-white for their first year.
• They're in the same family as eagles and hawks (Accipitridae) but behave more like giant swallows.
• The scientific name mississippiensis was given in 1811 from specimens collected along the lower Mississippi — this bird is literally named after the river Memphis sits on.

Field notes (to add)

• Specific nest-tree locations across Memphis (anonymized)
• Audio: Xeno-canto / Macaulay clips
• Arrival + departure Julian dates from TOS records
• Kettle counts at fall bluff hawk-watches