Oscar-nominated All That Breathes brings neglected black kite into our living rooms

A still from 'All That Breathes', which is nominated for the 2023 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.

It soars in the skies, searching for food. The flight is buoyant, the bird gliding with ease and changing directions at will. Then, suddenly, the black kite swoops down, its legs lowered, to snatch small live prey, fish, household refuse and carrion. It is a sight to behold. A stable population has meant the bird is not at risk for extinction, nor has it elicited any conservation concern. Till now.

An Oscar-nominated documentary is changing this narrative for the neglected raptor. All That Breathes is the story of two “Kite Brothers”, Saud and Nadeem, who care for these birds that drop daily from New Delhi’s smog-choked skies. It captures the rapidly unfolding ecological tragedy that is taking place in our cities, and the interconnectedness of man and nature. It has also brought the black kite’s tale of survival in urban India into our living rooms.

A black kite perched on an electric pole (Photo by Timothy Gonsalves via Wikimedia Commons)

Sneak peek

“The black kite is a common bird in India. There are two recorded species - the small Indian kite (formerly pariah kite) and the black-eared kite. The small Indian kite is a resident and can be found across the country. The black-eared kite spends time here in the winter months. While birdwatchers can tell the difference between the two, most people confuse them with eagles,” says Kiran Srivastava, COO, Raptor Research & Conservation Foundation.

The resident black kite can be easily spotted in cities, often circling the skies, lining the roofs of buildings, or perched on the bars and poles of electric towers. Despite its name, the bird is actually dark brown, its feathers speckled with white and eyes deep-set behind a sharply curved beak. It is an opportunistic predator and facultative scavenger, and highly adaptive. The black kite can colonise and even thrive in urban areas as it relies on the abundant prey supplies usually directly or indirectly promoted by human subsidies.

“Solid waste management is poor in cities, which affords plenty of food in the form of carrion or refuse. The black kite is a city cleaner. It can often be seen around mounds of garbage in landfills, where it feeds on poultry slaughter discards and carcasses of animals run down on the road. It also eats rodents and smaller birds. Nearly 30 percent of its diet comes from live prey,” says Dr Nishant Kumar, an ornithologist at the Oxford University and the Wildlife Institute of India. He is also the founder of the Black Kite Project, which studies human-kite interaction in Delhi.

According to one estimate by Kumar, Delhi's kites annually remove about 4,000 tonnes of edible refuse from its streets and landfills. This makes the bird an integral part of the city’s ecosystem. A progressive decline in this ecosystem service offered by the bird can have potential repercussions even on human health, for example, through an increase in rotting organic waste or in populations of feral dogs. The latter are a source of rabies for humans in India and have been shown to increase in response to declines of scavenging birds. Still, the black kite is considered a nuisance, and in some places, like Delhi, is about as unloved as the pigeon.

According to one estimate, Delhi's kites annually remove about 4,000 tonnes of edible refuse from its streets and landfills.

Flight or fight

In India, black kites occur almost exclusively in close association with people, often building nests a few metres from human habitation. Their densities, however, are more in places or areas with ready access to food. “For instance, many people in Delhi engage in the religious practice of feeding meat scraps to kites. Large quantities of meat are tossed in the air for the birds to catch at predictable hours each day, sometimes causing hundreds of kites to congregate. More than 90 percent of the diet in this population is composed of this offering,” says Kumar. It is also a primary source of food for resident kites that do not leave Delhi in the summer months.

The birds prefer areas that retain reasonable green cover. “Less than 5 percent of all black kite nests are found on artificial structures,” says Kumar. Breeding season is typically winter, and the nest is a rough platform of twigs and rags placed usually in a fork of a tree. Both male and female build the nest, incubate two to three eggs, and care for the chicks.

Though the IUCN has categorised this kite species as of “Least Concern”, it does face a few challenges:

Habitat loss: Since the birds prefer to nest on trees, loss of green cover can have a detrimental effect on the breeding population.

Manjha menace: Every year, thousands of birds, including black kites, are injured and killed during kite-flying season due to synthetic manjha. Though several cities have banned this particular type of manjha, it is still in use.

Climate change: It can alter seasons, changing migration and breeding patterns. For instance, sudden winters can result in the intense laying of eggs within a short period of time.

Toxins: Animal carcasses contaminated with diclofenac, a veterinary nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, have decimated 99 percentof vulture populations. “At the moment, however, there is no conclusive research on the toxins and pesticides present in garbage, and their effects on black kite populations,” says Srivastava.

Zoonotic diseases: The black-eared kite shares its migratory routes with other birds and could carry zoonotic pathogens. Kites could potentially infect each other, other animals and even people. These interactions, however, need to be studied further.

“Their interconnectedness with humans has also made them accustomed to our presence. It has alleviated their fear of us to an extent. So, there have been instances of aggression towards people, especially during the start of breeding season or when they have offspring in the nest. But it’s usually a case of them seeing people as potential predators,” says Kumar.

Despite the evident success of black kites in cities, their study in India remains lacking. Black Kite Project, Raptor Research & Conservation Foundation, and Wildlife Rescue are among the few organisations that are trying to showcase how the bird has become inextricable from human existence and come to impact the lives of people in a deeper sense.

“There is a cultural component too that has allowed black kites to co-exist alongside humans, and even thrive so far. But its role and impact on urban ecology and conservation needs further research,” says Srivastava.

The survival of the black kite and other birds of prey may depend on it.