Black Kite
Milvus migrans· 鹰科(8 photos)
Black Kite
48-55 cm; span to 1.2 m. Floats overhead on long, drooped wings with prominent spread 'fingertips'; twists, tilts its long, forked tail. Plumage mud-brown; slight pale patch at base of primaries; undersides of wings and tail faintly barred paler brown. Beware: when soaring high, the spread triangular tail suggests a 'square-tailed' kite. At rest, note dark mark around eye, pale forehead and throat, fawn band across 'shoulder', very short legs. Juvenile: streaked and spotted fawn. Scavenges around towns, stockyards, garbage tips, slaughter-houses; climbs sky in huge, wheeling companies. Irruptive in response to locust or mouse plagues; attracted to bushfires; swoops low into smoke to seize prey.
- Other name
- Fork-tailed Kite; Kite-Hawk; Pariah Kite (India).
- Similar Species
- Square-tailed Kite. Whistling Kite: paler fawn, with contrasting black flight feathers; rounded tail; different wing pattern and call.
- Voice
- stuttering trills and whinnies.
- Habitat
- grasslands, gibber deserts, sandhills, timbered watercourses, beaches, tidal flats, airfields, homestead environs.
- Breeding
- July-Dec., s. Aust.; almost any month in n. Aust.
- Nest
- usually in tree on watercourse; singly, or in loose colony; flattish, untidy, of sticks, may be lined with wool, dung; often refurbishes old nest of other raptor or crow.
- Eggs
- 2-3; spotted, blotched red-brown.
- Range & Status
- n. and especially e. inland Aust., s. to c. Murray R.; casual to coastal se. and sw. Aust. Vagrant Tas. Sedentary; dispersive; irruptive. Widespread and familiar Africa, Eurasia, PNG.
- Distribution key to races
- 1. Milvus migrans affinis
