The brahminy kite is about the same size as the black kite ( Milvus migrans) and has a typical kite flight, with wings angled, but its tail is rounded unlike the Milvus species, red kite, and black kite, which have forked tails. The pale patch on the underwing carpal region is of a squarish shape and separated from Buteo buzzards. The juveniles are browner, but can be distinguished from both the resident and migratory races of black kites in Asia by the paler appearance, shorter wings, and rounded tail. The brahminy kite is distinctive and contrastingly coloured, with chestnut plumage except for the white head and breast and black wing tips. Haliastur indus flavirostris Condon & Amadon, 1954 – Solomon Islands.Haliastur indus girrenera ( Vieillot, 1822) – New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago and north Australia.Haliastur indus intermedius Blyth, 1865 – Malay Peninsula, Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands, Sulawesi and the Philippines.Haliastur indus indus ( Boddaert, 1783) – South Asia.The brahminy kite is now placed with the whistling kite in the genus Haliastur that was erected by the English naturalist Prideaux John Selby in 1840. Neither Brisson nor Buffon included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Falco indus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. It was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. The brahminy kite was included by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. He used the French name L'aigle de Pondichery. In 1760, French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson described and illustrated the Brahminy kite in the first volume of his Oiseaux based on a specimen collected in Pondicherry, India. Adults have a reddish-brown body plumage contrasting with their white head and breast which make them easy to distinguish from other birds of prey. They are found mainly on the coast and in inland wetlands, where they feed on dead fish and other prey. They are found in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Map is from Atlas of Living Australia website at licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.The brahminy kite ( Haliastur indus), also known as the red-backed sea-eagle in Australia, is a medium-sized bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors, such as eagles, buzzards, and harriers. Lays 1 or 2 dull-white or bluish white eggs.Īcross northern Australia from central Western Australia coast to northern New South Wales The nest is large, made from sticks, seaweed or driftwood and lined with lichens, seaweed and other material. The nest is built in tree near water, often mangrove tree. It swoops and snatches live prey or carrion from the surface of ground or water. Often soaring over beaches, estuaries and mudflats.īeaches, mangrove swamps, estuaries, riversįish, insects, carrion. The eye is dark and the bill is yellow and hooked. It is reddish brown with white head and breast. The Brahminy Kite is a medium sized bird of prey. Image by Jack Versloot - Some rights reserved. Image by Judhi Prasetyo - Some rights reserved.
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