21/12/04

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The January issue BBC Wildlife magazine have us in the top ten Wildlife Spectaculars in the UK!

Snow all around so the numbers of red kites visiting the feeding station were swelled yet again. Somewhere around the 350 mark yesterday.

The noted visitor of the day was a kite who's wing left tag was Green and the right tag was Yellow - Dumfries & Galloway!!

The kite with the tag "White H" was here today and I captured the bird on film calling from a tree so that will be on the movie page later.

The pecking order of the older kites before the younger element is still apparent - this is quite a surprise as by this time of year it is usually a free for all.

So, while a large number of kites will be present for the feed at 2pm, for those watchers willing to wait in the hides a treat is in store as a much larger number will arrive around an hour (give or take 10 mins) later.
These are predominantly this years young.


I'm thinking about using a remote microphone to relay information to those who wish to hear it in the hides while I put out the food..
I'd be grateful to .

The sun appears to be promising a bright afternoon and if this is so the video camera will be pressed into action again.

The trees are frequently stacked with the birds just prior to feeding, unlike the summer months when they would more likely have been thermalling

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Anything between 200 and 400 red kites are now coming in over the afternoon and with snow all around us we'll likely have one of the largest numbers of kites feeding today.

Clocks have changed so the kites will now be fed at 2pm each day for the rest of the winter.

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30/10/04
We have a new addition to the facilities for watching red kites - a 25x100 all weather giant observation binocular from Monk Optics Ltd.!
See right. More information on its position etc. will be posted here soon.

After a fairly brisk start a bench in one of the hides fell over at an inopportune time and scared away the crows for quite a while so the majority of the kites were late today.

The red kite from the East Midlands (white/white H) was spotted again yesterday - it was last seen here on the 1st of September..

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October 29th
Well over 200 red kites are now visiting on a daily basis. The 'pecking order' of aged before all other seems to be holding for now as the prominent yellow tags of this years young are showing up around an hour after the initial feeding has begun.
I managed to forget the shovel with which I distribute the food today and this in front of a full house of course :-} Feeding was therefore 5 minutes later than normal and the kites were waiting in numbers by the time I got back to the field..

Recent sightings of 'foreign' red kites visiting the red kite feeding station have been made by Tony Cross (the Welsh Kite Trust Project Officer).

They are as follows:
From the Black Isle, North Scotland BLUE/YELLOW 54,
from the East Midlands (Rutland) WHITE/RED 9,
and from the Chilterns YELLOW/RED 15.
These are in addition to the red kites I reported being seen here on the 1st September -
from East Midlands WHITE/WHITE H,
and from Yorkshire ORANGE/WHITE 17

A list of the red kite tag colours and what they mean in terms of regions and the year of hatching can be found here.

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October 20th
The kite left in rehab after the release of the other two patients is still unable to fly. It seems the crows did more damage to her wing than had been first apparent. She will likely have to stay here until next year when the feathers will again be replaced.

As the numbers of visiting red kites are increasing almost daily our meat supply has had to rise to meet the demand. For the past 11 years we have cut the meat up by hand every morning and this has been quite a tie until now .. A meat cutting machine has been installed and this means we are now able to cut up a whole weeks supply in a single morning :-)

I'm frequently asked about the food..
The meat is purchased from a local abattoir. It is all beef, fit for human consumption and is actually a higher grade of meat than is used in many beef burgers!

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September 13th
With the onset autumn weather the numbers of kites visiting have mushroomed with around 200 milling around the sky shortly before feeding - this between heavy showers of rain an hail!

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September 1st:
The leucistic red kite that hatched in 2004 was here again today and the kite that escaped from the rehabilitation unit on the 17th of August was on the ground feeding and looking fit and fine. This young bird was brought to us for feeding up but she is managing to do that for herself at the feeding station. And, 'E' is looking well too- see the picture here. We have seen a number of 'foreign' kites here just lately - one with a White tag "H" and one with an Orange tag "17".

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August 31st:
The white kite was missing for much of the afternoon but at around 5:30 I was filming down at the hides when a large white bird flew through the feeding area.
This evening, having reviewed the afternoons footage, I can confirm that this is indeed a different 'White Kite" and this is in fact the 2004 fledged leucistic red kite.

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August 26th:
Two of the rehabilitated red kites were released back to the wild today - and yes, a short movie of the event was taken:-) The first kite, with tag no.40, was released from a field .
She was very reluctant to believe it was free at first but Tony Cross (Welsh Kite Trust) gave it a little more space and away she went.
The initial flight could have been tidier but considering the state she was in on arrival it was quite an achievement.
The second release was directly from the rehabilitation unit. The plan had been to film this kite fly out towards the feeding station but she had other ideas. Tony went in to 'flush' her out but she went to ground just outside the unit then took off again and flew directly towards the camera and over my head! (See the blurry image on the left).

Their progress will be monitored over the coming weeks.

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August 24th:
While the weather has been quite unassumingly of late the lower temperatures have at least brought the crows in quicker as their thoughts of food have increased and with them the better time keeping of the kites
The 'pecking order' is still in evidence with the numbers of kites increasing as the afternoon unfolds. I've found the better opportunities for filming have been from 5pm on as the feeding is less hurried by then and kites will even land to feed alongside buzzards.

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August 19th: On some of the warmer days the crows have been reluctant to come in for food and so the kites too have sometimes been a little later than would have been otherwise expected - anything up to half an hour or even more. The kites wait for the crows to alight first. These birds have been happy to sit tight for lengthy periods of time before heading for their food and so kites too have been late for their lunch!