Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I care for my
family, I really do, but sometimes they drive me insane – actually, we all
drive each other insane, and on a regular basis. It is not that we want to hurt each other – usually we do
not want to, (I am being optimistic here), but more often it happens just
despite our best intentions, (again, I am being optimistic here). What next?
Well, last time we talked about one of the most specialized
birds of prey – the osprey. This time, we will talk about one of the most
generalized of them all instead – the black kite. Why it? Because it is one of
the most outspread members of the kite group in the Old World.
What characteristics define a kite, (we are talking birds
here, not toys)? They are excellent flyers, but unlike the falcons, their
aerial mastery is more like that of the much greater eagles and vultures – they
glide and soar on the currents of air instead.
Then how is a kite different from a vulture? Aside from the
obvious, of course… actually, let us start with the obvious. Both vultures and
kites, (such as the black kite), eat carrion, but the vultures appear to be
more adapted to it – i.e. their bald heads and necks, their more powerful physiques
and bigger body sizes, and so on. Yes, just as the kites, at least some
vultures can catch live prey, but they are bigger, they need a greater daily
intake of food, and so they usually don’t waste energy further by killing live
prey, they scavenge.
…The kites, on the other hand, are more flexible than the
vultures are – usually. In North America, lives a bird called the snail kite,
and it too is a kite, but a different one: it is a food specialist. The osprey eats almost only fish. The snail
kite – almost only a certain type of snail, so when those snails suffer and
their population falls, the same can be said for the snail kite.
To further differentiate itself from the rest of the kites,
the snail kite is very much sexually dimorphic, as the males and females of
this species have very different plumage colorations. As we have mentioned
before, many of the carnivorous birds have bigger females and stronger males –
aka the sexual dimorphism – but usually the two sexes are not colored differently as well. There are other birds of prey with this sort
of thing, the northern harrier comes to mind, but we have digressed. Let us get
back to the kites.
There are several other species of kites in North America,
and while they do not look very similarly to the black kite of the Old World,
they are master fliers as it is, and as a rule, the kites are some of the more
migratory birds of prey. The snail kite is a homebody, which makes it again
different from the rest of this group. There are stable populations of black
kites in Africa… actually, they might be closely related birds to the typical
black kite, but where were we?
Ah yes, the kites. They might be some of the most basic modern
birds of prey. They do not have any derived physical that make them unusual,
(but there are always exceptions, of course). They do not have any dietary
preferences either, (usually) – they can eat both live prey and carrion. They
are master fliers and have spread all over the globe, except for the poles and
the mountains – they do not do cold so well. They are not particularly powerful
or impressive, so they are able to co-exist with other carnivores, avian and
otherwise, without too much conflict… though some hawks, and the European
eagle-owl do attack the black kite on
occasion – this is inter-species conflict, and it’s not unlike what the lions have
with the other meat-eating mammals on the African plains. Sadly, here the black
kite is the underdog – but that is another story.
For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!
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