The thermal highway above hot concrete
Black kites (Milvus migrans) are among the most studied urban raptors on the planet, and India holds some of their densest city populations. A 2014 study published in PLOS ONE by researchers including Julien Martin found that black kites in cities exploit the same thermals that pigeons and crows use, but with a crucial difference. Kites read the heat signature of a city the way a sailor reads wind. The dark asphalt of a road in Nagpur or Chennai generates rising columns of warm air by mid-morning. Kites lock into these thermals and circle for hours, burning almost no energy while scanning a radius of several hundred metres below them.
