Under and over the moon

I stepped out of the house around sunset and heard a loud, rasping call.  

I looked up to see this:

 

A White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) was protesting being attacked by American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos).

I was excited to see a kite because I had seen ~10 kites about a week ago and it looked like they were en route to a roost site.  I had looked for them again, without any luck.

Tonight was different.  I watched at least 15 individuals (it was hard to keep track) fly into a roost site.  Several were perched in a high tree nearby:

 

And then I could see individual kites gliding in from various locations.  Sunset was ~7:15 p.m., so the light was dim, but there was a beautiful crescent moon near the roost site:

 

 

White-tailed Kites roost communally.  According to the Birds of North America account:

• As many as 100 kites have been recorded at one roost site, but more often there are 10-40. 
  
• The kites approach the roost site individually, within ~1 hour of sunset. 
  
• The roost sites are sensitive to human disturbance. 
  
• Interestingly, there are a lot of "unknowns" about roost sites — it is not known if the same roost sites are used repeatedly, how the roost sites are selected, or what function they serve.

One White-tailed Kite is beautiful enough, never mind dozens coming into roost!