The bright and windy weather early on in the week seemed good for getting the raptors stirring so we had a visit to see if our local Red Kites were active. Well wrapped up against the icy wind we found a sheltered spot where we could scan the distant trees for any movement. After a few minutes two Red Kites could be seen in the area of an old nest tree. After careful examination with the bins we could see it was male and female and the way they were acting we presumed they were s pair and hopefully selecting the old nest to reuse. After moving down the lane a bit we found two more birds settled in a treetop near to a site where Kites had bred before. Hopefully there could be two pairs breeding in thst area which considering it is on the edge of a lowland shoot.On the drive bsck there were another pair of Red Kites displaying nearer to home so we could have plenty to watch in the coming spring
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
Wendy S said:Bob,a couple ofthe Kites released in the North East were from the Yorkshire birds and one returned back to the Leeds area and started breeding down here. A friend of mine did the transporting and had quite a lot of input in the scheme. I try to follow the Friends of Red Kites web pages and the locals in the N E seem to have adopted the Kites which is great.
Pleased to see our Kites have survived and thrived without a feeding station though some of the village residents do feed in their gardens. I just think its plain wrong to use food to habituate birds for the purpose of making a profit - that goes for feeding stations and baited hides. Let them spread and find a natural population level and density.