White-tailed Kite in the Farmlands of the Great Valley

Sometimes Mrs. Geotripper (well, everybody, really) gently derides me for hauling my camera everywhere I go, and I always say one never knows what one will see, even while doing mundane errands. Such was the case today as I was picking up some things at the CVS in town, and picking up our kitties from the kennel after the holiday. I was driving down Milnes Road, which runs through orchards and pastures east of Modesto, when I saw something with the colors of a gull, but the bearing of a raptor. I finally had a chance to get some half-decent shots of a White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus). I've only seen them once before, and this is their first appearance on this blog.

White-tailed Kites are not all that common, and in the United States are mostly found along the west coast and in Texas. Far more of them (96%) live in Mexico and Central and South America. They are known for their hunting habit of hovering in place over grasslands ("kiting"), waiting for something to appear.