Update on Suwannee and other Feathered Friends

Friends board member Debbie Jordan has been out and about checking on the abundant bird life. She sends this report, including an update on Suwannee the Swallow-tailed Kite.

I hope you’ve been able to be outdoors enjoying the spring bird life -- there are so many babies this year!  From cardinals to chickadees to woodpeckers, it’s been quite a noisy show with parents and begging youngsters at the feeders each day.  Our skies have been graced with our favorite soaring birds, swallow-tailed kites, who are now visiting us during their breeding season.  Through National Audubon magazine or our Friends News Brief, you might have heard about the Refuge’s “famous” kite named Suwannee, who was captured and outfitted with a GPS-GSM transmitter last summer.  In August/September, young Suwannee made the incredible 5,000-mile journey from the Refuge to Mato Grosso, Brazil where he over-wintered.  During his journey and while in Brazil, each time he came within range of a cell phone tower, data was transmitted about Suwannee’s location.  In March, we were thrilled and amazed to learn that, after taking a slightly different route, he made the two-month journey all the way back to Florida!

UPDATE: Last week, Refuge Deputy Manager Larry Woodward reported finding two Swallow-tailed Kite nests on the Refuge at the site where Suwannee was captured last year.  Gainesville’s ARCI researcher Gina Kent came out to investigate and found more nests, in addition to four they had documented last year.  Sadly, based on the data points on the map below, Gina thinks if one of the nests was Suwannee's, it may have failed, and he is now just hanging around.  Swallow-tailed Kites, male and females, share nest duties and feeding of the chicks. He would be staying close to a nest, if he had chicks to feed. Maybe next year?  Gina will continue to track the data received from his transmitter throughout the summer and come August, record Suwannee’s journey all the way back to Brazil!

Map shows data points where Suwannee has been tracked around the Refuge. Red dot is where he was captured last year - blue dots are where he's been tracked. Map credit: ARCI

​Checks to support Suwannee's tracking should be made to Friends of Refuges, and
mailed to:
​Friends of the Lower Suwannee & Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges
P.O. Box 532
Cedar Key, FL  32625
Please note you are supporting Swallow-tailed Kite research.

T-shirt Anyone? We are thinking of offering online purchase of kite t-shirts to support this effort. Please let me know if you’d like to order a shirt.  Price will be $25 including mailing costs.  We have Men's (S-2XL) and Women's sizes (S-XL)  [email protected]