Details on White-tailed Kite Sighting

["Thomas Morgan" <tlmorgan@inteliport.com>]

Last Wednesday my wife and I had the great experience of observing a
White-tailed Kite not far from our home in Currituck County.  We have
received several calls about the sighting after posting a message on
this board.  Here are some details:

The area - Access to Piney Island Road (SR 1145) is from Waterlilly Road
which connects the Waterlilly residential area to US 158.  Waterlilly
Road crosses a marshland area and in the middle of this causeway Piney
Island Road provides access to the Piney Island Club, a private hunting
club. Piney Island is well named.  There are large stands of pine on
this sand island along with open fields that border the marsh.  More
about this area can be found in John Fussell's "A Birder's Guide to
Coastal North Carolina" on pages 75-77.

The bird - As we drove down Piney Island Road we saw the bird siting on
a power line wire and were unable to identify it.  When we got closer
the bird took flight and began to "hunt" in the field next to the road.
We were able to quickly eliminate several options - immature osprey and
sea gulls.  We are not "experienced" birders so we tend to not consider
any species not usually seen in the area we are birding.  As we
continued to pour over the same field guide pages, the bird cooperated
with us by hovering, almost motionless above the field.  At times it
would drop straight down on something, but we never saw any prey
captured.  We flipped and he hunted for about 10 minutes.  The bird then
flew to a tree in the middle of an adjacent field.  Thus far we had
noted the soft gray wings, black shoulder patches, the all-white tail
and those dark, distinctive eyes on an all-white head.  We watched him
about five minutes in the tree and then walked out into the field.  He
eventually took flight and we returned to our car for more page
flipping.  We began to consider the possibility of it being the Kite.
We watched as several small birds - tree swallows pestered the Kite in
flight.  It then gave us a real gift by soaring directly over our heads
showing off the black wrist patches.  This occurred between 4:10 and
4:30 PM on a day with fairly brisk breezes from the NE and some high
clouds and sun.  We left the area to go to Church Island, further down
Waterlily Road to do some warbler birding near the campground at the end
of the road.  We stopped at Piney Island on the way back and say the
Kite again hunting the fields.  We have been back each day since but
have not seen it.

Skip and Linda Morgan
Coinjock, NC
tlmorgan@inteliport.com