Haven't heard much about the Mississippi kite at the Hocking Co golf course. Has anyone seen one recently? Well, has anyone missed it? A familiar scenario seems to be playing itself out in southern New Hampshire, where 2-3 Mississippi kites have been reported in recent days, with a pair seen sharing a tree in a yard. If they nest, this would certainly be a northernmost record for recent times. Kites in general seem to be on the rebound, and some interesting articles have been written about this recovery. Overall, the consensus seems to be that they, like other raptors, have of course benefited from reduced persecution and pollution, but also they enjoy more than other raptors habitats created by humans--notably opened forests--and are more tolerant of our presence. Swallow-tailed kites are bouncing back, too, but more slowly. During the 19th century this species was said to be a fairly common nester in Ohio. An astonishing number of northern records came to light in the 1870s and 1880s, before this species' rapid withdrawal from its former range. I found an egg in the OSU Museum that dated from 1878 in northern New Hampshire! The NH records committee rejected this record, largely because it seemed just too hard to believe, but there are a lot of published records from the period that seem unlikely today: records of a flock of 50 observed in North Dakota on November 11, 1881, a pair of kites spending the entire winter 1877-78 in S. Dakota, and a statement in Merriam's "Birds of Connecticut" (1877) reporting winter residents in Vermont. Eaton, in "The Birds of New York," relates reports of resident pairs in June & July in New York near the Vermont border in 1886, 1891, and 1900, though conclusive physical evidence (birds were collected, but not eggs) of breeding was lacking. There were lots of nestings reported from northern Minnesota. We had three promising Ohio reports last year, not all of which have been looked at by our Records Committee yet. Pretty good for a species most of us look for only in south Florida today! Anyway, Mississippi kites seem to reoccupy former nesting sites with some fidelity, and--as in southern Indiana--more seem to arrive to nest in areas where pioneering breeders have succeeded. Kite interesting, Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]