Red kite

My garden has been devoid of birds all day .
Now I know the reason
Just been out in the lovely summer everning and delighted to see the most beautiful red kite circling around .
This is so rare .
I saw one yesterday too at a different location .
What a privilege to see this stunning bird .

Re: Red kite

I am lucky because I see them daily here, Muddy.
There are loads of them.

Sometimes they swoop quite low just above the rooftop.
You can see the white pattern under the wings and how huge they are when they come low like that.

I know their call now, and can often hear them 'whistling' even if I can't see them.

Last year when I drove past a big commercial rubbish tip, there was group of 11 of them all circling round together like formation dancing.

Re: Red kite

Wow Mups before yesterday I had never seen one.
I was surprised how big they are too but how graceful, masters of the sky.

Re: Red kite

A perfect summing up Muddy. "Masters of the sky". I like that.
They certainly are graceful, and seem to just glide and glide without hardly moving their wings.
Recently one was being chased by a whole gang of blackbirds, I don't know what he'd been up to. They didn't half make a racket.

Re: Red kite

I remember first seeing a Red Kite some 35 years ago in Mid Wales. At that time there were only two or three pairs of the birds left in the UK. Today, just like Kestrels, they have made a fantastic comeback and have made it all the way up the M4 and M40 corridor to London. I was shopping in a garden centre in Harmondsworth (nr Heathrow) a couple of weekends ago when I saw a pair circling overhead. The garden centre owner said they were quite common nowadays.

Re: Red kite

I must be the only person here who hates them. They were introduced at Harewood House in Yorkshire in 1999, where I live we now have hundreds of them.

They take all the birds, I have even seen them take a pigeon flying at low level in my garden. I never see sparrows now, not ever, I reckon they all moved or have been wiped out.

I'm not sure we should mess with nature, maybe they were endangered for a reason.

Re: Red kite

I saw a lot of Kites recently these were at a place called Timber Creek in the NT.



They spent hours circling looking for food, if there was some burning off they came in dozens watching for small animals fleeing the fire. They are one of the few birds of prey that can eat their prey on the wing.

In the creek there were freshwater crocs this one was a couple of metres long.



Fresh water crocs are slow growing and pretty timid (not like salties) even turtles share the water with them.



Above them in the trees were hundreds of bats.

Re: Red kite

What lovely pictures, Bruce.

Re: Red kite

How the times have changed. When I first came to this area Kites were only around the skies near the Northants border. Now they are so common over head. And we are getting Buzzards as well.