visit from a Mississippi Kite

For at least 10 minutes, on each of the last six days, a Mississippi Kite has been sitting in a shallow birdbath on our deck. It's been around 100 degrees on these days, so I assume the Kite is using the birdbath to cool off.

According to the markings, it's a first-year Kite, which is a species of eagle or a "bird of prey" or a raptor - which means it has talons for grasping and killing prey.  Its prey is normally large insects such as grasshoppers (which seem to be abundant this year) and cicadas. But there have been reports of Kite's eating small mammals like field mice.

However, "our" Kite won't be here much longer. They all migrate to the south around the end of summer.