Sleeping during the night

Here is an example of the kites behaviour during the night. Apart from occasional preening, very little else happens, although they do awake on a regular basis.

Notice how the older birds now prefer to adopt the perching position on the branch, during the night - indicative of their increasing maturity. The younger kites still lie down, as they do in the nest.

Video clip length: 2 mins 10 secs