Black kites (Milvus migrans) seem to be everywhere in India. Whenever you look up, you’ll see several of them, lazily circling, looking for scavenging opportunities. They are as ubiquitous as pigeons or sparrows in England.
This afternoon I was looking out from my 5th floor hotel room, trying unsuccessfully to take a few photographs of the kites that occasionally swept past my window. As I was about to give up, I noticed that half a dozen of them were getting agitated about something in the river that flows past the hotel. I decided to try my luck photographing them from the bridge.
By the time I got down to the bridge, the kites had moved on (of course). However I did get a few pictures of kites, and also of the small herons that hang out on the trash in the foul-smelling river. And here’s a 2.1MB QuickTime clip of kites soaring.