Swallow-tailed Kites spend most of their time in the air, capturing and swallowing their food in flight. Rarely flapping their wings, they soar and make tight turns, rotating their tail to steer. They are very vocal when alarmed or when clashing with other members of their own species. Breeding pairs appear to be monogamous, and they may either pair up during migration or carry over their relationship from previous years. They establish small territories around and above the nest, and maintain them by flying silently in circles above the nest tree. Intruders are chased with loud scolding. Multiple pairs may nest near each other in “neighborhoods,” and nonbreeding birds often hang around carrying food and nest materials to breeding females (which reject the gifts). Swallow-tailed Kites often roost communally near nests, and right before migration hundreds of kites may roost together.
Swallow-tailed Kites breed in swamps, lowland forests, and marshes of the southeastern United States, primarily in Florida and South Carolina. They require tall trees for nesting and open areas full of small prey to feed their nestlings. Nesting and foraging habitat includes slash pine wetlands, edges of pine forest, cypress swamps, wet prairies, freshwater and brackish marshes, hardwood hammocks, and mangrove forests. The northern subspecies winters in South America, apparently in the same year-round habitat as the southern subspecies, in sites that remain wet enough during the winter to support prey. These may include humid lowland forests, riparian forests, and forests mixed with savannas. Swallow-tailed Kites are usually found at low elevations, but members of the southern subspecies often breed in sites more than a mile high, given adequately humid conditions.
1963-2018