This baby Red Kite fledged recently in a woodland near us. Mandy works with a client close to the wood and she found the nest although for a while it went very quiet and we thought they had deserted. Then in late July she heard them calling again and realised that they probably had young, went to look again and found this beauty, for a few precious days he/she was at the clumsy stage, not very confident, taking short flights beneath the canopy, seizing and dangling from some of the perches. But quite confiding and there was this lovely view as the youngster basked and slept in early morning dappled sunlight.
It’s been really great to catch up with Red Kites at last. I see them flying a lot and they have been venturing further and further into Pembrokeshire to nest over the last decade or so. But I haven’t had many opportunities to study them perched like this.
We think of Red Kites as Welsh birds and they are a wonderful success story, how they have radiated out from just a handful of nests in Central Wales and through the reintroduction projects elsewhere. So Wales was a very important refuge for the species in Britain and the Kite Trust have played an important key role. But the lesson has been that they dont actually need wild Welsh wooded hillsides. They are just as happy chancing around in Reading(!), and as history tells us in London where they once scavenged offal and cleared up the refuse of the city. They have a pretty huge wingspan and they are the closest we have to vultures in the UK at the moment and they play a vital role removing carcases and prey afflicted by disease. So please dont listen to anyone saying there are too many of them now.. It was this sentiment that caused us to nearly lose these wonderful birds once.