A 10,000 Mississippi Kite flock observed in Fuerte Esperanza, Argentina

Abstract

The Mississippi Kite (Ictinia mississippiensis) is a Neotropical migrant that nests singly or in loose, small colonies in North America from North Carolina and north Florida west to Kansas, southeastern Colorado, and Texas and north along Mississippi River to south Illinois and Indiana, and west locally to Arizona (Brown & Amadon 1968, Thiollay 1994, Wheeler 2003). The species migrates along the Mesoamerican Land Corridor into South America where it feeds on flying insects in rather small flocks. Wintering range is very imprecisely known but major part of population is likely to winter in central South America east of the Andes, southeastern Bolivia, Paraguay to northern Argentina, and at least to some extent, southwestern Brazil, wandering occasionally to Minas Gerais (Davis 1989, Fergusson-Lees & Christie 2001, Wheeler 2003, Kirwan et al. 2004).