The white-tailed kite is a small raptor that I see time to time in the Santa Monica Mountains and Conejo Open Space, including Malibu Creek State Park, Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa and the Conejo Canyons Open space.

They are very distinctive with their wide heads, intently surveying their surroundings. The kites pictured below at Malibu Creek State Park on Super Bowl Sunday morning, February 7th, were perched here well over an hour.

White-tailed kites feast mainly on rodents and small mammals.

You may see them hovering above the ground, flapping their wings into the wind, searching, waiting for prey, as you’ll see in the video below taken in the Conejo Canyons Open Space.