Mississippi Kites are fairly common in their range, and populations were stable between 19, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. In some cases a pair will accept a year-old bird as a nest helper. They usually court before they arrive at nest areas, but occasionally can be seen soaring and swooping as a pair. Pairs stay together for the whole breeding season. Both males and females will attack people and animals that come too close to the nest. They rarely show aggression to each other, but they are highly aggressive to human intruders and predators (including hawks, crows, and owls) throughout the breeding season. They are social birds, often roosting and hunting in groups containing dozens of individuals, and nesting close to other pairs-this is particularly common in the Great Plains. Though known for their graceful, acrobatic flight, Mississippi Kites also spend time foraging on the ground and in shallow water. Helpless and covered in white down, with open eyes. The shallow nest cup is heavily lined with leaves or Spanish moss, becoming nearly flat as it fills with debris over the course of the season. The nest, which is 10–14 inches across and 5–6 inches high, consists of loosely woven twigs from many tree species. The male and female both work on nest building, often at a leisurely pace, spending a few days to a few weeks on the project. They sometimes rebuild and reuse old nests, or build on squirrel nests. In the Great Plains they use isolated trees and groves. In the East, they prefer old-growth trees in large stands. Mississippi Kites nest in almost any tree species, as low as a few feet off the ground to more than 115 feet high. They may snag insects flushed by bison, people, horses, deer, and fire, and may scavenge roadkill. Sometimes they forage on foot amid low vegetation, or even in shallow water. With acrobatic maneuvers they extend one or both feet to grab prey from the air or from trees, shrubs, tall plants, and other objects on the ground, and they often eat their prize while still flying. Often seen hunting in the company of other kites, they search for prey while soaring over woodlands, water, farmland, pasture, prairie, or (less frequently) from an exposed perch. Mississippi Kites feed on medium-sized and large insects-such as beetles, leafhoppers, and grasshoppers-along with a variety of frogs, toads, lizards, turtles, snakes, small birds, terrestrial mammals, and bats. Their South American wintering habitat is undocumented. During migration they travel through forest, savannah, pasture, dry plains, cropland (corn, coffee, and sugarcane), human-inhabited areas, and scrub habitat. Since the 1970s many western pairs have also nested in urban areas such as city parks and golf courses. Other woody plants in their nesting habitat include plum and juniper. In the Southwest and central plains, they nest in windbreak plantings within shortgrass and mixed prairie, in oak and mesquite savannah, and in cottonwoods and salt cedars lining rivers. East of the Mississippi River, they nest in mature, diverse, low-lying forest-especially tracts that are large and unbroken but have nearby open habitat, such as pasture, cropland, waterways, country roads, or small lakes. Mississippi Kites breed in scattered areas of the southern and central United States, using very different habitats depending on the region.
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This feature has been a life-saver on multiple occasions and has been present since the early days of CleanShot. One last feature that I’m excited to talk about is the ability to: Hide desktop icons automatically when taking a screenshot Talking about 30 days, you can view all your uploaded screenshots (less than 30 days old) on your free CleanShot Cloud dashboard. □Ī quick note here: With a free CleanShot X cloud account (which comes bundled with a one-time license purchase), uploads are kept around only for up to 30 days. CleanShot X’s cloud links came in super-handy that day. This feature works for video recordings as well which is sweet.Ībout two weeks ago, I had to share screenshots on the support chat window which didn’t have an attachment upload feature. With CleanShot X, I can now get a shareable link to my screenshot with a single click. There were a couple of tools like LightShot and Droplr, but I never tried them out because I was so satisfied with CleanShot’s overall feature set. I had been missing this nifty little feature before CleanShot X came into the picture. See how easy it is rather than explaining with some abstract sentences like, “notice the blue rectangle on top?”?Īpart from these two cool editing features, I also enjoy: Getting instant shareable cloud links Here are some of the recently highlighted apps.
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