Luckily, our short visit to Baluran National Park at the end of last May managed to find Black-winged Kite’s nest. In Indonesia, records of nesting of this bird are very rare. Without waiting for a long time, we set up blind hiding. With this blind hiding, we hope to be able to observe the kite’s nesting behavior without disturbing it.
Like other small eagles, Black-winged Kite nests are placed on trees that are not too high. About 7 meters from the ground. Placed on the Acacia nilotica tree, where almost the entire trunk of the tree is filled with thorns and densely thorny small branches. It seems that no predator can reach the nest position with the tree conditions like that.
Both parents look have great communication each other in guarding the nest and caring for the chicks. The female males take turns entering the nest to feed, dispose of pellets and/or monitor the condition of the chicks. Both of them are often seen perched away from the nest tree to monitor from a distance while distracting intruders, including us. As the name suggests, the main food that is brought into the nest is mice. We haven’t encountered any prey other than rats during our observations.