There are kites in north America. One which looks very similar to our black shouldered kite. Beautiful bird. You may have seen them and not realised. Raptors are so hard to tell apart.
I just did some research and there are five kinds of Kite in North America, but they are all in the southern United States and Mexico.
They are starting to extend their territory further north so one day I might see a Kite. I know the Green Heron has extended its territory north of Lake Ontario so I have seen them.
The kites look like beautiful birds. I would love to see them.
You are right, the raptors are hard to tell apart. So often you only see them flying over head. We have a lot of Red Tailed Hawks and even some Peregrine Falcons right here in the city. They nest on the roof tops of high-rise buildings and they are protected so they are quite successful.
We have red-tail hawks aplently here in the widest U.S. We have to keep an eye on them with the chickens and baby goats, kittens, puppies, etc. they consider these little ones a nice treat!
We have friends not far away, who have a 'gathering place' of sorts for bald eagles. Each year when they nest they come to this place and you can see dozens of them in the trees. An awesome sight!!
Quote:We have red-tail hawks aplently here in the widest U.S. We have to keep an eye on them with the chickens and baby goats, kittens, puppies, etc. they consider these little ones a nice treat!
We have friends not far away, who have a 'gathering place' of sorts for bald eagles. Each year when they nest they come to this place and you can see dozens of them in the trees. An awesome sight!!
A red tailed hawk can take a baby goat? Wow! In the city they live on small birds, pigeons and Squirrels. They might get the odd rabbit. Mostly we hope they will take the pigeons because like many cities we are over run or should I say over flown with pigeons.
An interesting pigeon detail, our pigeons ride the subway system. They fly down to platform level and go across town to another station where food is good and then they come back again. There are no hawks of any kind inside the subway system. Pretty clever eh?
What an incredible thing, an eagle gathering place. They are very fortunate people to have such a thing on their property. I hope they get pictures.
I saw a bunch of pigeons hanging around an outdoor vegetable stand helping themselves when no one is looking. Sneaky little birds eh.
Train riding pigeons:
They are very clever birds. Notice how the pigeon stands in the middle by the pole and only moves to the door when the train is in the station and the door opens. These two videos are Toronto, but lots of other cities have train riding birds. Maybe the pigeon should be Toronto's official bird.
Just an observation, the other people riding on the train are not reacting to the birds. They must be regular riders.
