After yesterday’s exertions I sat on the sidelines today, with a kids’ birthday party at Colmslie Pool and various domestic duties needing doing. I kept a weather eye on the bird news, but fortunately there was nothing too dramatic. Rounding the corner into our road on the way back from the party, I was surprised to see a raptor flying fairly low west. It was clearly a kite, but I couldn’t get enough on it to see whether it was Whistling, Black or Square-tailed. Much to the consternation of my wife, I raced round the corner and screeched to a halt just as it crossed the road. A dark bird with a nicely forked tail, it was a Black Kite! My daughter thought I was talking about a real kite, and was very disappointed to learn it was “just a bird“. The small number of Black Kites that call Brisbane home seem to wander about and not be reliable anywhere in particular, so I was pleased to have bumped into one. And my apologies for degrading the quality of the Internet in general, and eBird in particular, by adding my smudgy iPhone photo to the checklist. I drove back to the front drive with the bird in view, and it became the 62nd bird on my yard list.

With one year tick today, my year list clicked up to 230 species. I spent 0 minutes birding (the kite was purely incidental), walked 0 km and drove 0 km.

Black Kite seems to show peaks in reporting rate in autumn and spring, but is pretty scarce at any time of year.