Treeless, breezy grasslands are great places to fly a kite, and locations like these are exactly where you will find the white-tailed kite (Elanus leucurus) hovering into the wind and scanning the ground for its rodent prey. This hovering behavior is so distinctive that it is called “kiting.” White-tailed kite chicks hatch in late June and early July, so keep a look out for juveniles out learning to hunt with their parents during the summer and fall. (A group of kites is called a string!).
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Though these birds are now relatively common in the Bay Area, they nearly went extinct here in the 1930s due to hunting and egg collection. By 1931 there were fewer than 40 individuals left in the Santa Clara Valley. Today they can be spotted in grasslands, marshes, and oak woodlands throughout the Bay Area. Kites are quite conservation success story!
