{"id":1675,"date":"2007-12-26T06:50:21","date_gmt":"2007-12-26T14:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2007\/12\/26\/kite-flying\/"},"modified":"2007-12-26T06:50:21","modified_gmt":"2007-12-26T14:50:21","slug":"kite-flying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2007\/12\/26\/kite-flying\/","title":{"rendered":"Kite flying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"http:\/\/identify.whatbird.com\/img\/4\/96\/image.aspx?x=250\" id=\"ctl01_Imageattributevalue4_imgImage\" class=\"alignright\" alt=\"White-tailed Kite Body Illustration\" style=\"border-width: 0px\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/gambolinman.blogspot.com\/\">Gambolin&#8217; Man <\/a>sent a note the other day about his first-ever sighting of a pair of white-tailed kites, raptors known for their tendency to hover, kite-like, over their prey.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Luckily, I had my binoculars, for they were a good 75 ft. away from my own perch on a rise of ground above a hidden labyrinth. Looking out east to big views of Mt. Diablo, northeastward to Brionesland, west across the bay to Mt. Tamalpais, I didn&#8217;t see them for a few seconds. . .but then, there they were. . .gorgeous hawk-sized birds, whose stark white chests, black shoulder streaks through grayish-white plumage, sharp yellow talons, and slanty black eyes. lend them an air of kingly superiority and calm detachment &#8212; clearly, these birds have adapted as specialized hunters, masters of their domain, and I&#8217;m lucky enough to be watching one of them tear apart a mouse atop this snag, pecking at it, drop a stringy gut and then slurp it up like a noodle, picking it apart in delicate jabs, eating while looking around, seemingly totally enjoying himself (him? her? couldn&#8217;t tell, and don&#8217;t know &#8211; they were identical in appearance, so perhaps they were not a nesting pair?).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I was asked what I knew about these raptors, and of course my knowledge was zip, but thanks to the wonders of the Internet I was able to find not only the picture above but a Web site brimming with bird info: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whatbird.com\/\">WhatBird.com<\/a>, an online field guide to North American birds. Its page on the <a href=\"http:\/\/identify.whatbird.com\/obj\/29\/_\/White-tailed_Kite.aspx\">white-tailed kite<\/a> has many juicy details, such as:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Foraging and Feeding<\/strong><br \/>\nDiet consists of voles, field mice, pocket gophers, ground squirrels, shrews, small birds, small snakes, lizards, frogs, grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles; hunts while hovering, often pausing to study the ground before swooping down on prey.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.enature.com\/flashcard\/show_flash_card.asp?recordNumber=BD0102\">another page<\/a> which said that these birds were nearly hunted to extinction by farmers who thought (mistakenly) that they preyed on chickens, but they&#8217;ve since made a strong comeback.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/99667240@N00\/2041783508\/\">Here&#8217;s some cool shots at flickr.com\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gambolin&#8217; Man sent a note the other day about his first-ever sighting of a pair of white-tailed kites, raptors known for their tendency to hover, kite-like, over their prey. Luckily, I had my binoculars, for they were a good 75&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2007\/12\/26\/kite-flying\/\">Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}