Bird Life Big Cypress Swamp Region 97 



mood is on them they will take a turn at somersaulting and otlier start- 

 ling aerial stunts. They show very little fear of man at such times, 

 for more than once as I have stood watching them they would swing 

 unconcernedly within 30 or 40 feet of me. The birds are to a certain 

 extent gregarious, for where you find one pair there will likely be two 

 or three more nesting within a radius of half a mile or so. The Kite 

 population of the vicinity can easily be arrived at when you start to 

 climb a nest. The cries of its owners quickly attract the other Kites 

 within hearing distance, and they join in the outcry, though at a safer 

 distance. At each of the nests I climbed from five to eight Kites were 

 circling above me by the time I had gotten well started. 



It is an exhilarating experience to sit in the top of one of those tall 

 southern pines, with the breeze swaying j^ou gently back and forth, and 

 watch these matchless fliers sweep and careen above you. Only once 

 did I encounter a really vicious bird. Time and again she swooped 

 down on me, once just brushing my shoulder with her wing. It took 

 all my attention to do the climbing and I never knew just when I was 

 to feel the rush of her wings and hear the sudden boom of their arrested 

 motion right at my ear. It was just a little nerve trying. 



Two different times I had the good fortune to watch the birds nest 

 building, and both times the ceremony was much the same. The female, 

 escorted by the male, carried the nesting material. With the most 

 graceful of evolutions, accompanied by a constant chatter, very pleasing 

 to hear, and which reminded me much of the love-making of a pair of 

 Barn Swallows, they flew to a point above the nest. The female dropped 

 down for a moment, arranged the stick or bit of moss in the nest, then 

 rejoining the male away they went chattering as far as one could follow 

 them. 



The nests I examined were made of dead cypress twigs and Spanish 

 moss, and were lined abundantly with a soft, silky, green moss plucked 

 from dead cypress trees. In all I found six nests. Two were in the 

 process of construction, the other four contained two eggs each. Five 

 were in pine trees, the sixth in a tall slim cypress. One was at the com- 

 paratively low elevation of 55 feet, the highest about 85 feet up and 

 well out on a branch running off at an angle of 45 degrees, the most 

 difficult climb of them all. This last mentioned nest I collected together 

 with the eggs, first crawling out and securing the eggs, then roping up 

 the limb and cutting it off with a hand axe. Nesting dates were March 

 17th, an unusually early date, perhaps a record, March 28th, April 7th 

 and April 21st. In the latter case the eggs were half incubated. The 

 dates when observed building were April 6th and 7th. 



26. Circus Imdsonius. Marsh Hawk. Observed several times quarter- 

 ing over marshes and ponds during April, and I am inclined to think it 

 nests here. 



27. Buteo liorealis borealis. Eed-tailed Hawk. This species is rare 

 in Lee County. One nest found April 5th about 20 miles south of the 



