A Champaign mom’s keen eye has sparked a statewide frenzy among birding enthusiasts, making history and bringing out-of-towners to gawk along busy Windsor Road.
Wendi Lindsay first spotted a Swallow-tailed Kite flying around her southwest Champaign neighborhood in late August.
“I … immediately knew it was a raptor or hawk-type bird that was uncommon to the area,” said Lindsay. “I thought it was a kite right away because it was white and black, and was flying in a hunting pattern but differently than most hawks that fly very high up.”
An amateur birder who has documented 39 species from her home, Lindsay knew the bird was not native to these parts — but had no idea how rare.
“I saw it Aug. 30 for the second time and knew that I needed to notify someone else,” said Lindsay, who learned how to bird from her dad and has casually enjoyed the hobby since she was 8. “So I posted on Illinois Rare Bird Alert. From there it caught fire.”
According to the Illinois Ornithological Society’s Illinois Ornithological Records Committee (IORC) which evaluates the evidence for records of birds that are rare or unusual in Illinois, there are currently only six accepted records of Swallow-tailed Kite sightings in the state during the last 50 years, plus several other undocumented sightings. Most Swallow-tailed Kites live in Florida, and typically they are confined in the Southeast. They migrate to Brazil for the winter.
Many birders with binoculars have been spotted along Windsor Road and Mattis Avenue in the past few days, befuddling drivers in that busy corridor. Online chatter indicates that more birders may be descending upon Champaign this weekend to catch a glimpse. Lindsay’s daughter, who set up a lemonade stand to serve the birders, talked to one from Peoria on Thursday.
If you want to see the bird, Lindsay said the Swallow-tailed Kite prefers to hang out in one of two places: in a dead spruce tree in Morrissey Park (off Windsor Road, almost directly across from Next Generation) and in a dead sycamore tree on Kenny Avenue (off Mattis, south of Windsor). She also said the best time to see the bird is between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
“It is a super cool bird … that is what makes this more interesting,” Lindsay said. “It barely flaps its wings when it flies and it grabs dragonflies with its talons and eats them in the air. It can also grab tree frogs from trees in flight.”