Hi
I have also wondered about Red Kites. Our small birds do disappear for a while when the kites fly over but we also have a local sparrowhawk and a kestral so they have reason to be wary. As someone else said, they soon come back to the feeders. More of a problem is in the spring when the bluetits are feeding. Three years running the sparrowhawk took one of the parents and the chicks did not survive. Last year we think they fledged for the first time. The previous year the lone parent tried to feed them but could not cope and in the end encouraged them out too early. They did not know how to feed. Re the BGB, I did better this year than last. On Saturday, in spite of my 'hour' virtually coming to an end after about fifteen minutes when my neighbour came out and started clearing snow with a shovel, I counted small numbers of 7 different species and Sunday we had a better number of sparrows and starlings though not as many as we see at times. a few years ago we counted 15 on the birdtable sometimes! A Red Kite circled over quite low a few times today but I did not count him because he did not land.