Brahminy Kite

The brahminy kite, or red-backed sea-eagle, is a medium-sized bird of prey, 45–51cm long with a wingspan of 109–124cm and a weight of 320–673g. Adults are rich chestnut with a white head and breast and black wing-tips, a combination that makes them easy to tell from other raptors. Juveniles are browner but paler than black kites, with shorter wings and a rounded tail. It is about the size of a black kite and flies like one on angled wings, but its tail is rounded rather than forked. Its call is a mewing keeyew (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives mainly on coasts and around inland wetlands, where it feeds on dead fish and other prey. It builds a nest of small branches and sticks lined with leaves in a tree, often a mangrove, and shows strong site fidelity, nesting in the same area year after year. It shares its genus with the whistling kite, and four subspecies are recognised. In India it is resident with a large range; SoIB 2023 finds its trends stable and rates it a Low conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).