Birds of Prey - White Tailed Kite

This morning we got out of the house fairly early
and on the road because I had signed us up to volunteer to count raptors as part of the East Bay Regional Shoreline program.  Of the raptors we were counting, we saw, four White tailed kites and many American Kestrels.

We saw the White tailed kite, shown in the photos below, catch and eat a small mouse. What a beautiful bird.  I've never seen one before, to the best of my knowledge.

Here it is hovering.

Here's a video I found on Youtube of a kite hovering. What we learned is when the wings are flapping, it's called hovering.  When the wings are still, it's called kiting.  

In the video below, I think the kite is doing both, kiting and hovering.  You can see at times the wings holding more still.  I'm not 100% sure but that's what I think this means, at least according to what the guide today told us.

A close up view of the kite eating the mouse.  Shown through the view from the big lens above.

We saw many bird varieties this morning: Kestrels, White tailed kites, a Cooper, a Merlin, two Green Herons, a bunch song birds and also the white egret shown below.  We saw lots of egrets, of course.  Such a common bird around here.  The highlight of the day was the kites, though.