Black Kite or Pariah Kite: The master of sky-riding

On any day with a clear sky, go to your roof. Look up. You are sure not to miss a feathered biped with an elongated but deeply forked tail, similar to that of ilish machh or fingey pakhi, soaring overhead. Effortlessly soaring, gliding and often joining in mock chasing of each other.

By the time you have taken a deep breath, the kites have soared up in circles, covering a few hundred metres, and gone beyond your vision. They are champions of utilising updrafts of air and soar in circles when late-morning warm air starts moving upwards, as the sun heats the ground surface.

By any chance, if you are passing through the Buriganga River, from downtown Gabtali near Mirpur to Fatulla in Narayanganj, you are sure to see Bhuvan Chil bomb diving over a piece of dead fish or rat, shrew, floating debris of a dead dog or rat.

They could pass by any boat or motor launch, and even within a metre of you, when snapping their food from nearby water surfaces. The dark brown sky riders that patrol the sky over Dhaka and other major cities or human settlements with lots of animal offal and organic rubbish are our well-known bhuvan chil or khoiri chil, the black or pariah kite.

Zoologically, a bhuvan chil is called Milvus migrans. Sometimes, an animal or plant species may have several distinct or geographically isolated populations. Each of these populations is called a subspecies of a species.

The bhuvan chil that lives 365 days a year inside Bangladesh is a subspecies Milvus migrans govinda. This govinda subspecies, our bhuvan chil, not only occurs in Bangladesh but also in many parts of Asia, from Bangladesh east through tropical India and Sri Lanka, to Indochina and the Malay Peninsula.

Our Bhuvan Chil is a chocolate brown with a pretty elongated tail that is deeply forked at the one-third part of the tip. The adults are darker and are without any streaks or markings on the breast or underside. The immatures are heavily streaked and lighter brown.

During most of winter, autumn and spring, we might see an influx of kites that look very much like bhuvan chil, but slightly larger, heavier, and with heavily streaked bodies. They even have a patch of dark plumage in front and back of the eye.

The most distinct is the tail that is slightly forked, or not forked at all. Also, when we see them overhead there is a light brown carpal patch. Based on all these features, this kite has been designated the subspecies name Milvus migrans lineatus. This subspecies is called black-eared kite or badami chil.

It lives and breeds in Siberia to Amurland, south around the Himalayas to north India, north Indochina and south China, and Japan. In winter, birds living in the northern mainland migrate to parts of India, Bangladesh and the Persian Gulf Coast.

Recently, I saw a social media post where a lady posted a video of a soaring flock of hundreds of Badami chil patrolling the top of those trees and over the Shahid Minar. I was quite heartened by seeing the video simply because the new Richarder koroi that were planted along the Shahid Minar and nearby roadside are being liked by the migratory badami chil.

The Dhakaites cannot miss a chocolate brown flying machine swooping on a rubbish bin, picking up the leftover chicken intestines, legs or cattle ears, tail, etc., and vanishing in thin air in no time.

I used to reside in Shahidullah Hall, University of Dhaka. Back then, the Curzon Hall premises, university playground, Shahidminar, Ruqayyah Hall, Shamsunnahar Hall, Jagannath Hall, Engineering University residential area, Dhaka Medical College had rows of Richarder koroi, Albizia richardiana and raintree koroi Enteroloboum saman; both are South American endemics.

They were introduced to Dhaka City by a Britisher in the early 1900s. Indigenous trees in the area included a few very old tamarind, buddha narikel, telshur, jarul, sheora, ashoka, putrajeev, kadamba trees.

Dhaka's resident black kites loved these trees for roosting at night, resting by day and nest-building purposes. They do it as pairs, or small loose flocks of about a dozen or so kites.

Nevertheless, by winter there used to be a windfall of hundreds of kites soaring over the area and roosting there from late afternoon till next morning, before dispersing for daily search for food inside and outside the city limits.

Often, the migratory subspecies roosted there. During the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, they used to congregate at Dhaka University. Another large population stayed in the raintree forest inside the Peelkhana, the then-BDR compound.

By the late 1990s, almost all trees in DU campus Medical College and nearby areas were knocked down by storms and some fell apart on their own due to overage and living in an alien country.

Recently, I saw a social media post where a lady posted a video of a soaring flock of hundreds of Badami chil patrolling the top of those trees and over the Shahid Minar. I was quite heartened by seeing the video simply because the new Richarder koroi that were planted along the Shahid Minar and nearby roadside are being liked by the migratory badami chil.

During the 70s and the 80s, they used to feed from the Jatrabari rubbish dumps, Hazaribagh tannery and other smaller rubbish piles in the city. Now, they mostly go to Amin Bazar rubbish dumps and other places around Dhaka city.

They are more common in large cities with open garbage dumps, slaughterhouses, meat processing factories, organic rubbish thrown from shanty restaurants, roadside marketplaces and unhygienic sewage drains or open garbage fields.

They are also found in good numbers in the Sundarbans, coastal fishing villages and haor areas.

They thrive on unwanted body parts of poultry and cattle, or dead bodies of animals, because there is a super concentration of people in cities, large towns and markets that result in the production of surmounting quantities of rubbish. The kites loiter around such places for getting their food.

Also, places that have pretty large avenue trees or planted in parks and gardens attract kites nesting and/or resting. So, we have more bhuvan chil in cities than in the villages.

Only a handful of black kites live in the countryside. Both subspecies of black kites present inside our country are nature's scavengers. They keep our environment clean of animal rubbish lying around. So, they are beneficial creatures.

It's a lot of fun watching these birds fly in the hundreds, soaring high in our sky, occasionally chasing each other, dive-bombing over friends around in mock attacks. These give them good exercise. Their daily chores are no doubt soothing to our eyes, ears and minds.