Mississippi Kites back in Newmarket, NH

Right, so this probably isn't big news to New England birders. The fact is, that both pairs returned to Newmarket, NH this year. (Last year it rocked the entire birding world when they were found to be nesting in not one, but two locations in NH, as well as another pair in CT - my blog posts from last year can be found here.) And, as amazing as it still is to me, there seems to be a lot less fanfare about the birds this year. Unfortunately, one of the nests seems to have failed, but the second nest has remained active and seems about to fledge a chick.

Today, rather than doing what many birders along the coast do at this time of the year (i.e. checking out local coastal spots for the beginning of shorebird migration - often battling the beach-goer traffic) Pamela and I decided instead to take a ride up to my old stomping grounds to see these birds again this year. (We did make a trip earlier this year with our Birders who Blog, Tweet, & Chirp field trip in June, and saw one adult on nest.)

Upon arriving at the nest location, we noted another couple of birders - Tom Pirro of the Birding North Central Massachusetts... and Beyond blog, with Chuck Caron. They'd been watching the kites for a few minutes. We chatted about the birds as they kited, swooped, stooped and fed the chick on the nest.

Interestingly, it seemed like when one of the adults when in to feed the chick on the nest, they didn't waste their time about it, but went into a Peregrine Falcon-like stoop and bombed right into the nest.
I have to admit - this was just a lucky shot as the bird turned out of a nice glide into a stoop.

They also spent very little time at the nest - mostly just dropping off food and taking off again. Every now and again, an adult would stay for more than a few seconds to feed the chick.
Tom had mentioned that when they showed up, one of the birds had perched for a short time on one of the nearby snags, and as we were heading back towards the cars, one of them did again for a few moments - but not long enough for me to get the sun behind me. (The bird was completely silhouetted.) I decided to try to stick around a bit longer and try to get a photo of a perched bird in better light. After little luck in over 40 minutes, I decided to try to use the car as a blind. That did the trick, and within a few moments I was able to get a few quick shots off of the bird perched, before it brought the next meal to the chick on the nest.

Before leaving, we did run into one more couple - Alan Delorey (author of the ABA Birder's Guide to New Hampshire) and his wife, who were back in New Hampshire (from Florida) under unfortunate circumstances, and were using this opportunity to add the kite to their NH lists.