Hi,
I live next door to the Kranskloof Nature Reserve in Kloof and on returning home this morning saw 20-30 yellow-billed kites tightly swarming around a copse of trees less than 100m from my house. It was truly amazing to watch as they seemed to narrowly miss each other in flight. They swarmed from ground level to about 40m above ground and made a great deal of noise. I didn’t see any of them land and couldn’t see what the attraction was but assumed there must be something dead that they were waiting to feed on. I came outside with my camera about 20 mins after first seeing them but they’d all disappeared completely.
We get to see a lot of birdlife in the nature reserve but this is the first time I’ve seen anything like this. I hope other folk get the opportunity to see something similar as it was a truly amazing spectacle!
Kind regards,
Sally
It may be that they were feeding on hatching flying ants. I have witnessed this twice in the last few weeks here at home in Morningside, Durban. One of the most interesting experiences to witness.....standing right under them while they swoop and catch the minute ants with their tallons and eat on the wing. There were obvoiusly plenty of all the usual insect eaters, but I had no idea that seedeaters also ate them.... even the tiny mannikin finches feasted, although they took them on the floor and took a whole lot longer to eat them as they first have to tussle with the relatively large flying ants first!
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