Black Kites

To welcome Black Kite to the list of Carwoola birds I thought I'd put up a few details.  I'll begin with some images I took in Bourke in July.

This is what I consider to be the typical view of a Black Kite, showing the forked tail.  No other raptor in Australia has this feature.

 This one is perched .  Did I mention the forked tail?

The flock in Bourke was at least 40 birds.  25 of them were soaring over the centre of town while others, including this lot, were perched over the Darling beside Bourke wharf.

To illustrate the range of the species here are three maps derived from eBird.  The darker the mauve colour the higher the reporting rate.

'X' marks the location of the Plain: and shows this observation was pretty close to the SE limit of the range.