High Hopes
Adult Swallow-tailed Kites primarily eat insects, but they feed their chicks lizards, snakes, and amphibians, like the green tree frog this father caught. Many known nests in the United States are located in privately owned working forests. When conducted sustainably, logging creates the mosaic historically formed by natural disturbances that kites need: a heterogeneous patchwork of stands of varying ages and heights that provide the raptors with nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat, all within relatively close proximity. “When you think about the disturbance factors in Florida, it’s fire and storms,” says Ken Meyer, head of the nonprofit Avian Research and Conservation Institute (ARCI). “Timber harvest mimics those disturbances.” When spring arrives in Florida, avian acrobats cut across the sky. Swallow-tailed Kites carry cypress twigs and long strands of Spanish moss back…
