NORTH AMERICAN WHITE-TAILED KITE 61 



showed there not only Buteo but Kites above swooping down, one, then the 

 other (Kites are nearly always in pairs), in huge parabolas reaching a 

 hundred feet or more above the harried giant. Down one comes with a rush 

 and swings up again. Immediately after, the other one drops, then up, and 

 so around and around they alternate until the distance and blue swallows 

 up Buteo and tormentors. This game is played the year around, in the breeding 

 season and out. Perhaps, as with the excitement that small birds display 

 over the discovery of an owl, there may be a meaning in the Kites' pugnacity. 

 It may well be that the contents of the Kite nest, in the very top of its oak, 

 concealed from below but completely exposed from above, are a temptation to 

 those big hawks the Kites so persistently annoy. If so, then there is something 

 of significance in the fact that Turkey Vultures, though they have always 

 been, in the Kite territory, more numerous than all other large birds, are 

 never molested. 



Voice. — Dr. Pickwell (1930) also gives the best description of this 

 bird's notes, as follows : 



The notes are several in number and no one word or term describes them 

 all. The most frequently uttered is a spasmodic short whistle : keep, keep, keep. 

 At a distance it sounds like chip, chip, chip, or kip, kip, kip, kip, or even more 

 chicken-like, cheep, cheep, cheep. This is the note that is given as the birds 

 beat slowly here and there with legs dangling, and it expresses the mildest 

 solicitude. Undoubtedly Dawson (1923) means this note with his "cleick". 

 The next is more highly pitched and longer, a "plaintive whistle" in truth. 

 It may be transcribed as kreek or kree-cck. It may be as repeatedly and rapidly 

 uttered as the former and expresses greater solicitude. The last and most 

 solicitous, uttered usually only when an intrvider is climbing the tree to a 

 nest, is a prolonged kee-ruk or kee-rck. This note comes at the end of a series 

 of keep notes. Its terminus is lower and almost guttural, reminding me 

 much of the whang of a focal-plane shutter. The notes of the young are two. 

 They have a mild, high-pitched kree-eek like the adults, and when at the 

 height of their intimidation display they have a harsh scream uttered with 

 the mouth enormously agape. This reminds one much of the rasping scream 

 of the Barn Owl. 



Field marks. — The most striking field mark of this kite is its 

 whiteness; in the distance it seems to be wholly white ; it might easily 

 be mistaken for a white domestic pigeon, except for its peculiar flight. 

 But it can be recognized by its flight, described above, as far as 

 its outline can be seen. If near enough its black shoulders and, at 

 times, its dangling legs are diagnostic. As seen from below, it 

 appears wholly white with a dark crescent at the bend of the wing 

 and gray at the extreme tip; its tail is decidedly rounded. 



Enemies. — Milton S. Ray has sent me some extensive notes on his 

 experiences with these kites in several of the central counties of Cali- 

 fornia, from the late nineties up to 1932. He says that jays, 

 magpies, or crows will sometimes puncture or destroy the eggs in an 

 incomplete set. Once he saw a raccoon leaving a nest, and the eggs, 

 which it had contained previously, had entirely vanished. He men- 

 tions a very loosely built nest, "so frail and open that one of the four 

 eggs partially fell through the nest." Another nest "was so com- 



