The pale patch on the underwing carpal region is of a squarish shape and separated from Buteo buzzards. The juveniles are browner, but can be distinguished from both the resident and migratory races of black kites in Asia by the paler appearance, shorter wings, and rounded tail. The brahminy kite is distinctive and contrastingly coloured, with chestnut plumage except for the white head and breast and black wing tips. Haliastur indus flavirostris Condon & Amadon, 1954 – Solomon Islands.Haliastur indus girrenera ( Vieillot, 1822) – New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago and north Australia.Haliastur indus intermedius Blyth, 1865 – Malay Peninsula, Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands, Sulawesi and the Philippines.Haliastur indus indus ( Boddaert, 1783) – South Asia.The brahminy kite is now placed with the whistling kite in the genus Haliastur that was erected by the English naturalist Prideaux John Selby in 1840. Neither Brisson nor Buffon included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Falco indus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. It was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. The brahminy kite was included by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. He used the French name L'aigle de Pondichery. In 1760, French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson described and illustrated the Brahminy kite in the first volume of his Oiseaux based on a specimen collected in Pondicherry, India. Adults have a reddish-brown body plumage contrasting with their white head and breast which make them easy to distinguish from other birds of prey. They are found mainly on the coast and in inland wetlands, where they feed on dead fish and other prey. They are found in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Australia. The brahminy kite ( Haliastur indus), also known as the red-backed sea-eagle in Australia, is a medium-sized bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors, such as eagles, buzzards, and harriers. Both parents incubate the eggs and the young are fed bill to bill with small pieces of food. The nest is large, made from sticks, seaweed or driftwood and lined with a variety of materials such as lichens, bones, seaweed and even paper. The nest of the Brahminy Kite is built in living trees near water, often mangrove trees. It harries or bothers other birds such as gulls, Whistling Kites, Osprey or Australian White Ibis. It also steals from fish-hunting birds, snatching prey in flight. It swoops low over water, the ground or tree tops and snatches live prey or carrion from the surface. The Brahminy Kite feeds on carrion (dead animals), insects and fish. It is sometimes seen over forests and along rivers. The Brahminy Kite is a bird of the coast, particularly mangrove swamps and estuaries. It sails on level wings along shorelines and mudflats. The legs are short and not feathered, the eye is dark and the lemon yellow coloured bill is strongly hooked. The wings are broad, with dark 'fingered' wing tips and the tail is short. The rest of its body is a striking chestnut brown. The Brahminy Kite is one of the medium-sized raptors (birds of prey), with a white head and breast.
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