White-tailed Kite

Elanus caeruleus
STANFORD LOCATIONS:

More common in adjacent foothills, but a few pairs are present in the southern portions of campus. At least one pair has nested regularly in the faculty housing area.
  
Nest
Location
Nest
Type
Eggs
Mating System
Dev.
Parental Care
Primary &
2ndary Diet
Foraging
Strategy
F
I: 30 DAYS
SEMIALTRICIAL 1
15 - 60 feet
(5 - 60 feet)
MF
4-5
(3-6)
MONOG
F: 35-40 DAYS
MF
INSECTS
BREEDING: Savanna, riparian woodland, marsh, partially cleared or cultivated fields, grassy foothills. Occ 2 broods.
DISPLAYS: Slow circling flight by pair, one passes below, rolls onto back as if to pass food, but interlocks feet with mate.
NEST: In treetop, camouflaged from below but open above. Flimsy to well made, large and deep; of twigs, lined with grass, stubble, rootlets, moss, inner bark, etc. Often perennial.
EGGS: White, marked with brown. 1.7" (42 mm).
DIET: Esp California vole and other rodents, also birds, snakes, lizards, frogs, and large insects.
CONSERVATION: Winters within U.S. N.A. range greatly expanded since l960; probably the only raptor to have benefited from agricultural expansion. Aided by high adaptability to habitat disruption and increased abundance of rodents.
NOTES: Under favorable conditions, nest semicolonially. Male does all of hunting for female and young from incubation until near fledging. Food transferred from hunter to mate in midair. Often hover with legs dangling. Roost communally in winter (to >100 birds) but usu hunt solitarily. Formerly known as Black-shouldered Kite.
ESSAYS: Raptor Hunting; Communal Roosting; Range Expansion.
REFERENCES: Brown and Amadon, 1968; Cramp and Simmons, 1980; Eisenmann, 1971; Warner and Rudd, 1975.

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Except for Stanford Locations, the material in this species treatment is taken, with permission, from The Birder's Handbook (Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, & Darryl Wheye, Simon & Schuster, NY. 1988).