Will a Swallow Tail Kite eat a chicken?

[Speceider]

Quote:
Kites are raptors with long wings which spend a great deal of time soaring,. We have Swallow tailed and Mississippi kites here,.. the Mississippi kites eat a lot of the birds at our feeders,..

the Swallow Tails, we always see with snakes,.. they have a wingspan of about 4 ft.,.. and they are beautiful!

Given that I have put radio transmitters on swallow-tails, I know what a kite is.

The BNA account lists wing length as "Wing Length (Chord).
Museum specimens, means only (Friedman 1950): males 431, n = 8; females 440, n = 12. Live, sex unknown, S. Carolina (Cely and Sorrow 1990): 424 ±10, n = 6. Live, sex unknown, Florida (KM): 469 ±33, n = 9.


A 469 mm wing length is only about 18 inches, 2X 3 feet. Not huge, and for an aerial feeder, wingspan isn't the best measure. Body mass is a better measure.

Not a HUGE bird.

Clint

 

[crossgirl]

Well they're big enough to have me worried. So glad I found this thread. There's been a trio hanging around and I'm worried for my banty babies. We put shelters out for them and I think they'll be okay but anymore here lately I'm seeing danger everywhere! It's comforting to read that ya'll haven't hard problems with them. Yet.

 

[BayouPoules]

Quote:
+
good to know,.. I am really beginning to think my DD was correct,. they were really checking out the long black water hose in the yard to see if it was a snake,.. I have never had them even interested in the chickens before that,.. but they sure are big enough id they wanted to,..

 

[Pinky]

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I have two kites that I see often flying low over the trees near my house. My chickens don't even bother making alarm calls anymore when they see them. I never knew what they ate though.

 

[DabblinDuckDabbler]

Just stumbled on the thread because I've got a white tailed kite that has been visting my tree canopy regularly for a couple weeks and wanted to see if anyone else had had problems with kites. I think all my fatties are too big for it, and the rooster stands diligent guard, but I don't have any bantees or chicks at the moment. My yard also is blessed with an abundance of squirrels (which I haven't seen as much since the kite's been coming round, come to think of it), and it abuts a field that y kitties regularly inform me has plenty of mice and rats. Frankly, I'm happier with the kite overhead than the raven that keeps coming by to steal eggs (though again, not so much since the kite's been stopping by regularly).