I was at the opposite end of the house to Richard when he called out ‘What’s that brown thing in the dam?”   Never too far from the camera, I caught a distant shot of a large bird, which we initially thought was a Wedge-Tailed Eagle.  This large bird of prey was taking a bath in our dam.  As soon as it realised we were watching it took to the sky and Richard was able to snap a few shots as it circled overhead to gain height.

We have spent a bit of time comparing our photos to the images in Pizzey and Knight’s ‘Field Guide to the Birds of Australia” and from the shape of the tail, we can see it is not a Wedge-Tailed Eagle after all.  Looking at the markings on the wings and the tail, along with the dark brown colour, our best guess is that this was a Black Kite.