Id Help please

["Philip Veerman" <>]

I am aware of the record Mark refers to and various published and written on birding-aus or wherever records of Square-tailed Kite in SE NSW in summer. It appears to be a regular migration and breeding area for them. If they are increasing would be interesting and nice. I'm sure other birds would hope not, as they feed largely on nestling birds. I also know of another StK from Maria Lukacs about 7 years ago somehere near Eden or Tabourie Lake or whatever. And my observation (that pair was seen by almost all participants at the BOCA christmas camp at Cann River, Vic in December 1993). So I am not disagreeing with that part of Bob's message. But the abundance status of Black Kites near Deniliquin surely is common and is way above that of StK. Quite apart from status, the id of the bird in Julie's photo is certain. Square-tailed Kite do not look like Black Kite with a few differences.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Clayton [
Sent: Friday, 31 October 2014 12:07 PM
To: 'Philip Veerman';
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Id Help please

I am about to send off to Michael Lenz in his role of Editor of CBN, a record of a Square-tailed Kite (plus another species) that have not been previously recorded for COG’s Area of Interest. It was seen by Richard Allen and Paul Mahoney, two very competent observers that had seen the species previously, and myself who is very familiar with the species from surveys along the East Australian coast and elsewhere, and Chris Davey who had not seen the species before.

 

The Square-tailed Kite is becoming increasingly common along the South Coast as Bob Rusk and others have noted on this and other forums.

 

I also sent Julie an email confirming the species as a Black Kite – sometimes I forget to hit “reply to all”.

 

Mark