Wyoming Welcomes A Rare Mississippi Kite Nesting At Last

If you’re playing the license plate game on a Wyoming road trip, spotting Mississippi is a jackpot.

In the birding world, the equivalent prize has wings.

The Mississippi kite — known to birders by its shorthand, MIKI — is a crow-sized raptor most commonly found in the Deep South and along the Mississippi River Valley. In Wyoming, it’s so rare that the Wyoming Bird Records Committee asks observers to report every sighting.

In the summer of 2024, one of those sightings happened by accident. And in 2025, it turned into something no one in the state had documented before: a successful nesting.

An Unexpected Date Crasher

Grant Frost, a senior wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, wasn’t looking for a rarity when he pulled into Lakeview Cemetery in Cheyenne one August evening. He and his wife had picked up ice cream and wanted a quiet place to sit.

Then came the unfamiliar call.

Frost opened the Merlin bird ID app, held his phone out the window, and waited. The result flashed back: Mississippi kite.

Moments later, he confirmed it visually — a sleek, gray raptor perched atop a spruce. Crimson eyes. Black tail. Narrow, pointed wings built for acrobatic flight. A bird that winters in central South America and typically breeds far to the south.

The biologist in him took over.

“I tried to make up for birding on a date,” he later joked, “but that one stuck with me.”

He saw only a single bird that night. It flew off, and that seemed to be that.

Until this past summer.

Twice As Rare

In 2025, Frost stopped by the cemetery again on a hunch. This time he saw not one kite — but two.

That changed everything.

Two raptors lingering in the same place for days can signal territory. Territory can mean nesting. And nesting would be historic. Mississippi kites had never been documented breeding in Wyoming.

Frost began visiting almost daily. For weeks, there was no clear evidence. He saw adults soaring in lazy circles, snatching insects midair — dragonflies are a favorite — sometimes folding their wings into falcon-like dives before stalling into a treetop.

But no nest. No food deliveries. No chick.

Then, on Aug. 19, during a lunchtime visit with a coworker, they heard a new sound: a high-pitched, two-note call.

A juvenile.

The nest, high and concealed in a cottonwood in a residential neighborhood near Lakeview Cemetery, was nearly impossible to see. But five days later, Frost finally glimpsed the young bird peeking out.

He nicknamed it “Junior.”

A Neighborhood Adopts a Raptor

Word spread quickly in Wyoming’s small but dedicated birding community. More than 50 people came to see the birds, including dozens from out of town. The nest tree stood in a quiet neighborhood, and residents proved welcoming — even proud.

Over the next several weeks, birders watched Junior grow.

The chick called constantly, advertising its hunger whether adults were visible or not. When a parent arrived with prey, the exchange resembled a midair mugging. As summer turned toward fall, Junior began moving farther from the nest, perching in predictable spots for feedings.

Eventually, it flew.

For Frost, who had checked on the bird nearly every day, the first confirmed flight felt personal — closer to watching a niece or nephew graduate than logging another data point.

“This wasn’t a quick glimpse and move on,” he reflected. “It became an investment.”

What It Means

Beyond the emotional arc lies a scientific question: Was this a one-off anomaly, or the edge of a northward expansion?

Mississippi kites have gradually pushed west and north over the past century. They now breed in parts of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. In the 1960s, they began adapting to urban and suburban nesting sites with mature trees — a shift from their traditional bottomland forests of the Southeast.

Cheyenne’s older neighborhoods, with tall cottonwoods and a late-summer abundance of flying insects, may offer just enough habitat.

Still, Wyoming presents challenges. Suitable towns are sparse. Insect availability is tied to temperature. And recognition is limited. A casual observer might glance at a gray bird overhead and assume it’s a generic hawk.

“If I hadn’t been specifically looking, this may never have been recorded,” Frost acknowledged.

The successful nesting will now be reviewed by the Wyoming Bird Records Committee. Given the extensive photos, recordings and multiple observers, acceptance is expected to be a formality. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department will add the species to its list of birds officially known to reproduce in the state — a notable milestone. The last raptor added to that list was the barred owl, following documented nesting in northwest Wyoming.

The Long Goodbye

As September deepened, a new worry set in: migration.

Mississippi kites travel thousands of miles to central South America. Junior was at least a month behind the typical departure schedule.

Each day it disappeared from view prompted speculation it had left for good — only for it to reappear near the nest tree. Finally, in late September, the adults vanished. Junior lingered briefly, calling into empty air. Then it, too, was gone.

Whether it survived the gauntlet of predators, storms, starvation risks, light pollution and window strikes is unknowable.

But Frost holds onto a quiet hope.

“If I see a Mississippi kite in Cheyenne again,” he said, “I’d like to think it might be Junior coming home.”

For now, he keeps scanning the skies above Lakeview Cemetery. In a state better known for pronghorn and golden eagles, a slim gray raptor from the South has carved out a small chapter of Wyoming history — proof that even in wide-open country, nature still delivers surprises.

See more Wyoming wildlife stories here.