I’m just back into the hotel after an excellent morning’s birding in Bangalore’s Nandi Hills with the extremely likeable and very knowledgeable Mike Prince (he of Bubo Listing). I’ll get a post online soon (I’m in rather desperate need of some sleep first), but highlights included the regionally-endemic Yellow-throated Bulbul, Indian Scimitar-babbler, Grey Junglefowl, a superb male Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher, and Short-toed Eagle (no sign of the Nilgiri Woodpigeon unfortunately). Before I pass out though I thought I’d post these photos of a feeding Black Kite Milvus migrans.

As anyone who’s been to India will know Black Kites are anything but rare, but I’ve always had a soft spot for them. The fact that I spent my teens scanning the skies in the UK - where they’re very rare - hoping to see one may have something to do with it, but I’ve a feeling it’s more to do with the fact that it always impresses me that a large-ish raptor can survive in some of the most crowded cities on Earth by swooping down and grabbing bits of the waste we so casually discard. It helps that they have a wonderfully evocative whinnying call, too, and are agile and masterful fliers - but I love them for their sheer visibility in situations most raptors would spiral away from at a high rate of knots.

It makes them great photographic subjects too of course. Normally I don’t get a chance to get prolonged looks at a Black Kite: they tend to be ’smash and grab’ artists, pouncing on items and whipping them away. I’ve plenty of pictures of them in flight, or perched in trees looking for their next take-away, but this morning Mike and I came across one that was trying to lift off with what looked like the entire innards of a large dog - the intestines, liver, heart…the lot. As we approached I could almost see the bird weighing up whether to take fright and lose its meal or risk making a short flight, stop to swallow a bit of slippery intestine, and then fly again and repeat until full.

After a few hops and jumps and plenty of flapping the guts themselves made the choice, snapping in half in a spray of fluid as the Kite made one last attempt to fly off with the whole lot before we got too close…Sadly I missed that shot as I was a little too slow, but, fear not, my friends, next time I’ll get the details I’m sure you all would have liked to have seen!