SANParks.org Forums

For all you bird lovers a pic of a Black Shouldered Kite which I took near Lower Sabie two weeks back.

Other names:
Afrikaans: Blouvalk
German: Gleitaar
French: Élanion blanc
Portuguese: Peneireiro-cinzento
Dutch: Grijze wouw

Madach that's a great action pic, They are pretty good at hovering and I've even seen them alongside busy highways first hovering then dropping suddenly almost amongst the cars to grab an unsuspecting mouse. They are so good at catching mice, I once saw a pic when I was a kid (many, many years ago ) that showed a Black shouldered Kite in a museum display on top of a years worth of rodents for a single bird. The pile was more than 2 metres tall and contained thousands of mice. Sadly we don't see them around here anymore even though the place is at times overun with rats.

This pic was taken in the KTP

So often people get caught out with the juveniles of raptors, so here is a pic of the juvenile. Raptors very often have different markings for the juveniles to allow the young birds time to develop their hunting skills without being chased out of territories and harrassed by adults. Once they get into their adult plumage, they have to be a lot more careful about where they hunt etc...

Juvenile


Adult

On our recent trip to the Eastern Cape I was gobsmacked by how many Black-shouldered Kites I saw on the drive from Elliot to Queenstown. They were lined up on the electricity wires in groups of 5 - 10 every couple of metres. I stopped counting at around 100! Lovely to see many pretty little raptors.

Taken in Addo

These birds are very common in the Western Cape and can be seen on wires between telephone poles peering onto the ground. Have seen many in WCNP and TMNP, including a kill or two.

I saw these two birds on 16 October 2007 at West Coast NP. They were quite near to each other (don't know whether you can see them in the first photo, one atop the bush on the right, the other in the grasses, lower left) and I think that they are both juvenile blackshouldered kites?

Immature Black-shouldered Kite

Food: Rodents make up 98% of their diet. The rest of the 2% contains shrews, small birds, insects and reptiles.
This one was enjoying a rather big lizard, only the tail end is left in the pic:


Habits: Usually solitary or in pairs by day but they roost communally at night when not breeding. Sometimes in flocks of over 100 birds (as Restio mentioned ) from 10-35 minutes after sunset. They hunt from perch (tree or telephone pole), or by hovering over open grassland, dropping onto prey with extended legs, sometimes in stages before final strike. Wags tail exaggeratedly up and down in threat. Flight graceful and buoyant.

Please if you can ID this one
is it a raptor ?
I think of black-shouldered kite
it was alone, medim size, and not with good light, sorry
it was around Tamboti

Yup, that's a BSK alright.

def. Black Shouldered Kite
even the its a bad photo...and it is very sillouhetted...you can tell by the prominent tail wagging

Once again, not a good picture, but any idea what this little guy/girls is




Maybe a black shoulder kite??