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General Information
Description: We see this bird hovering over our oval looking for
food. It hovers above the farmlands next to our school oval. It is
mostly white and looks like the letter- winged Kite.
The Black Shouldered Kite
grows to about 35cm with a wingspan of about 1
m. Its upper parts are pale grey with a black patch around the shoulder of
the wing. The underparts are white except a small, black patch under the
wing. There is a small, black patch
above the orange-red eye.
 Voice:
It makes a plaintive,
worried piping call, repeated regularly at intervals of about 5 seconds. It
also makes a drawn out wheezy husky or scraping "scrair" at intervals of
5-10 seconds and a "chek-chek-chek" sound..
Similar: The
Black Shouldered Kite has a striking resemblance to the Letter Wing Kite.
Habitat: The
Black Shouldered Kite lives in grasslands and farmland stubble with height
to harbour mice or other prey. It also lives in heath and saltbush with
scattered trees. It can be seen alone or in pairs and even family groups.
Food:
It eats mice, lizards, insects, etc. and other prey.
Breeding: It
breeds mainly in spring, but any time when food is abundant, such as during
mouse plagues. The kite nest is small and compact, often made of eucalypt or
pine leaves and it lays 3 to 4 eggs, but can have between 2 and 4 successive
broods. Incubation is about 30 days, by the female. The young fledge in 5
weeks.
Status: Common in coastal Australia, scarce
in semi arid and absent in arid regions.
It is vagrant in Tasmania and irruptive after
rodent plagues.
Reference: Photo
- Queensland DEH
Some information and pictures were taken from children's charts and
where credited to that child does not claim to be original information.
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