On a recent visit to India we saw these birds nesting on top of a lamp post in the middle of Delhi. Although both birds appear the same size one is the chick which was constantly fed with flesh throughout the day by two parents. This photo was taken from a roof terrace resturant. We believe them to be some type of small eagle, there was many of them nesting on rooftops. Can anyone identify- thanks
Barefoot between Worlds
Hi autumnlady,
excellent photo. The first eagle that came to my mind was the Steppe Eagle.
I have rather an old computer and when I enlarge and crop photo's of birds at a distance the pictures become very blurry making identification difficult.
I'm sure Seymouraves or Many other forum members will id them for you!
Regards Buzzard
Nature Is Amazing - Let Us Keep It That Way
Thank you Buzzard, it was my son who took the photo and we were actually as near as the photo makes it appear, we were probably no more than 6 foot or so away and the photo has not been modified in any way to my knowledge., we spent hours idly sipping chai (tea) and watching this family. Temperatures were in the 30's and it just amazed us that a family would choose there to nest, no shade, loads of pollution, very very noisy- not ideal but then their natural habitat I guess has gone to man's encroachment. Think they were feeding on the rats because there did seem to be an abundance of fleshy bits available for the chick. We were there for three weeks and saw the chick go from a fluffy wee head only seen when parent came back to what you can see in the pic which was taken on the last day. Sadly no pics of said fluffy head which was too cute! The chick is the bird with its back to the camera-I think!
Hi there,
I think these are very probably black kites, which apparently are quite a familiar sight in Delhi, as they are across parts of the Mediterranean, Middle East and Indian subcontinent. I've never been to India but I have seen black kites in North Africa. Did you happen to see if they had slightly forked tails when in flight? Not as deeply forked as our own red kites but still should be noticeable.
By the way this is a great shot of wild raptors in an urban setting!
Colin
Hi Colin
Black Kites? How interesting, as a newbie to the wonderful world of birds I have never heard of them. I have just googled some images of Black Kites and certainly they do look very similar to the birds that were flying around.
According to Wiki they ' They are well adapted to living in cities and are found even in densely populated areas.'
Will try and see if my son has any pics of the birds in flight
Thank you so much for your reply
Hi,
these look good for young black kites to me :))
S
For advice about Birding, Identification,field guides, binoculars, scopes, tripods, etc - put 'Birding Tips' into the search box
Thanks for letting us see your photograph. It is fantastic to see something so different.