bathing in a roadside puddle

bathing in a roadside puddle

bathing in a roadside puddle

Pretty sure this is a merlin. I've never seen one bathe like this before.

My first view of this Red-Tailed Hawk variety.

an adult female chasing an adult male for some reason.

An extreme rarity this far north - I think this was the first record of a breeding Mississippi Kite pair in Manitoba, ever.
I was lucky to meet up with a birding friend from Winnipeg as I passed through town and see this nest, which had only
been located a few days before.

The nest was at the top of an oak tree in a residential part of town near the river. It's well-hidden from the ground, but
you can make out the adult in this picture if you squint at it.

The kite is a gray bird with dark, almost black eyes. In this photo it's facing us, with its head visible at the top of
the photo, a little left of center. It's about half the height of the photo in total. Towards the bottom of the image you
can see some flecks of down among the twigs that make up the nest. We didn't see any chicks that day, though birders
spotted them later, as they grew.

It's hidden by leaves in this photo, but the arrow gives you an idea of the location.

after a while the adult took off to hunt some of the abundant dragonflies in the area. The Mississippi kite is an insectivore.

The adult is snacking on a dragonfly while soaring. I've seen swallow-tailed kites do the same thing - why take the time to land when you can have an in-flight meal?

there are more kite photos in the Road Trip Critters/Birds gallery.