Red kite wing tags give us a great deal of useful information..

In 1998 a national coding scheme was introduced which allows red kites to be identified at various levels depending on how well the birds can be viewed.

The colour of the tag on the left wing of the bird denotes the area in which they were marked/released and the colour on the right wing denotes the year it was fledged/ringed.

On a perched bird only one side is usually visible at any one time so a small bar of colour at the bottom of the tag informs the observer of the colour of the tag on the opposite wing.

The kite shown here has a Black tag so can be identified as a Welsh Kite, and the red coloured bar gives us the year it was tagged - 2003.