Swallow-tailed Kites 
199 
nile plumage characters. Based on museum skins, we could not 
identify plumage differences between post-hatching year and older 
swallow-tailed kites in the spring after they return from wintering 
areas. Age of post-breeding-season birds and their distribution, how- 
ever, could be documented. Young-of-the-year individuals can be 
recognized by their generally duller plumage, by the finely streaked 
(tan colored feather shafts) neck and upper breast, and by the nar- 
row white edge on the wing, wing covert, and tail feathers (Fig. 
4). This white edging likely wears away quickly. Young birds also 
lacked the bloom of the adults, but the bloom does not hold up 
well on museum specimens. Furthermore, because adults are in ac- 
tive molt in July, it is possible to distinguish young-of-the-year 
birds from older ones when the birds are in flight. Observers are 
encouraged to report plumage and molt (or lack of molt) for July- 
August sightings. This information would help considerably in as- 
sessing population size and age structure. Unfortunately, at this time, 
museum specimens and literature records offer no concrete informa- 
tion to clarify differential movements of various age classes. 
Present and former distribution — In view of the generalized 
diet of swallow-tailed kites and the wide dispersal of non-nesting 
individuals, it is difficult to explain the marked contraction of the 
breeding range of the species. Formerly these kites nested through- 
out much of the Mississippi drainage north to Oklahoma, 
Kansas, Nebraska, northwestern Minnesota, and southern Wis- 
consin. Ridgway (1895) stated that swallow-tailed kites were once 
common in Illinois. Parmalle (1958) reported a complete femur of 
this species from a Middle Mississippian Midden (1200-1500 AD) 
in Madison County, Illinois, and Goslin (1955) had zooarchaelogical 
evidence for this species from rock shelters used by Indians in 
Ohio, suggesting that in recent times the interior breeding range 
may have been larger than what was documented by early natural- 
ists. Pearson et al. (1942) suggested that swallow-tailed kites nested 
on the Atlantic Coastal Plain north to North Carolina, and while 
North Carolina is generally regarded as the northernmost nesting 
area in the East (AOU 1982), there are no actual nesting records 
north of South Carolina. Presently the breeding range is restricted 
to the lower Gulf Coastal Plain and the Outer Atlantic Coastal 
Plain north to coastal South Carolina. While the decline and abun- 
dance of the snail kites ( Rostrhamus sociabilis) in North America 
is well documented and the reasons for its decline are understood 
(see Sykes 1984), the change in the breeding distribution of the 
swallow-tailed kite over the last century has never been adequately 
explained. This becomes even more perplexing when one considers 
