This elegant raptor has learned to take advantage of what man leaves behind, writes David Lindo
DAVID LINDO THE URBAN BIRDER
The Brahminy Kite is an attractive, and very familiar raptor, found in Australia, around the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia.
Its closest relative is the Whistling Kite, an all-brown sister species from Australia and New Guinea. Brahminy Kites are quite distinctive looking birds, with the adult’s reddish-brown body and wings contrasting with their white head and breast. Conversely, the immatures are brownish, looking very much like bulky Red Kites, but with a rounded tail.
In their general appearance, adult Brahminy Kites have a strong superficial resemblance to several fish eagle species, which has no doubt led them to being also known as the Red-backed Sea Eagle in Australia. After all, as kites go, they are quite large and are fairly attached to coastlines and rivers, where they swoop down upon fish taken from the surface of the water. When it comes to their general feeding habits, they are the consummate omnivorous opportunists, tackling anything from crabs, amphibians and reptiles to patrolling roadsides for roadkill, gobbling up carrion or frequenting landfill sites. They are not above fighting over the slops and offal thrown overboard from boats and are often eager participants in kleptoparasitism, robbing food from the beaks and talons of gulls and Ospreys.
The kites can glean insects from trees by deftly manoeuvring between branches, and have even been known to slug it out with vultures over a carcass, though this is rarely observed.
So, we are talking about a super-versatile predator who has also made a success of hanging out in urban areas to take advantage of the food sources there. All birds need to feed, but Brahminy Kites seem to constantly be on the lookout for grub. I recall watching birds quartering the coastline at Bangkok, Thailand while I was trying to coax the local gull population nearer to me, for closer identification, by throwing shrimps at them. The kites took a keen interest in my activities.
In the more urban areas of New Guinea – hard to imagine, I know – the birds have been observed going after moths attracted to artificial light. And in coastal Queensland, Australia, they have been watched hunting for fish under the glow of the marina lights.
As an aside, kites are an interesting bunch of birds that consist of 33-plus species which taxonomists have split into three fairly distinct subgroups. It is believed that the scavenging or insectivorous habits of most of the members of this tribe are associated with the most primitive traits of raptors, with the more evolved members of the general family, like the Accipters and eagles, evolving into full-on hardcore pr
