Some rather premature red flags of autumn come from Ontario over the 
past couple of days: a red knot, a red phalarope, and a rufous hummingbird.
        As for swallow-tailed kites, here is some history. Most folks think of 
them as a Florida species, but their range was once much larger, easily 
encompassing Ohio. We have Ohio specimens in museums, including skins 
and archaeological remains, and plenty of anecdotal evidence they were 
once common in prairie country here. Modern texts, such as the BNA, seem 
a bit timid about representing its former range. The OSU Museum has an 
egg collected in New Hampshire. A hunter in Wisconsin wrote in 1854 of 
this species that it was “at one time quite numerous on our prairies, 
and quite annoying to us in grouse shooting." At one time it was 
regarded as common in Vermont, with wintering records, and a summer 
resident in S. Dakota, etc.  It is hardly a difficult ID, so 
mis-identifications are unlikely. It should not be surprising that 
humans with guns were complicit in the shrinkage of its range; one 
commentator wrote "Direct human persecution of a conspicuous, 
notoriously unwary bird whose original numbers in many areas may have 
been relatively small seems the most likely cause of the rapid decline." 
These days, fall roosts of this species in Florida have been estimated 
to contain as much as 50% of the N. American population.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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