According to the RSPB web site early releases were from Spain,but later releases came from both Sweden and Germany as well as taking some of the young of earlier releases in the UK..Some of these birds do wander cosiderably,I found two winged tagged birds in South West Scotland near Stranraer a couple of winters ago.These birds weren't from the re-introduction scheme nearby in SW Scotland where you would imagine they would have come from,but had in fact come from the North East Scotland scheme.I was told by the guy in Scotland who is involved in co-ordinated the releases that where the the young birds were taken from affected their movement patterns,and some birds would move say south easterly,whereas other birds from a different breeding area would say move more southerly,which is presumably how their genes would be programmed.Maybe one day we'll have a few resident birds in the county,always lovely to see no matter what their origin
Mrs P is currently part of a scientific research programme on Red Kites, looking at the original Welsh lot and looking at the introductions, looking at inbreeding, genetics etc etc.
Henry is correct in that the Welsh population is the original surviving population, and they can all be linked to one single female. All the reintroduced birds are usually from Spain, apart from the Irish re introduction programme, which are usually Welsh birds.
They are a slow speading species as the young, generally one chick per year, but two and three chicks are not uncommon, only move within a radius of 10 to 12 km from where they were raised. One of the reasons for the reintroduction to England.
During the breeding season, they do take live prey - small mammal, birds, frogs etc. There was even a trout and a rat in one of the nests we visited! Will there be a conflict between Buzzards and Kites? I am not sure. They seem to co exist in Mid Wales, but one Kite that was tagged flew from the nest and got attacked by a Buzzard, although the Kite did fly very close to its nest!
We also help out on a voluntary basis assissting the ringers and taggers of the Red Kite Trust. The tags are not cruel and are fitted very carefully through a tiny membrane of bloodless skin at the front of the wing and the tag can move forward and back as not to obstruct any wing movement.
Amazingly, these birds once placed ont he floor to carry out weighing, ringing, tagging and measuring, dont move. Part of their defence mechanism. They just sit there! So to be in a car box for a short period, probably isnt that big an issue for them.
Barn Owls are a different thing as we saw when the guy we were with went to ring a few inbetween Kite nests! They wanted the ringers hand off!
I have learnt a lot about Red Kites in a very short space of time. And there is hell of a lot more to learn as well! We met some very nice farmers who had nests on their land who were very intrested in conservation and the Kites. That was very nice to see. There are obvioulsy still ignorant farmers out there, epscially when it comes to foxes and badgers, but thats a different topic altogether!
The Red kite are very much on the northern tip of their range. They dont particulary like wet weather and suck up water like sponge!
One thing though, even though we see many many Red Kites everyday, they still remain an amazing bird!!
So which kites are the "real thing" exactly? The Yorkshire ones? The ones in the North East? Scotland? How about the couple of dozen you can see driving down the M40 - they're obviously bred pretty well and are quite wild?
I saw one over Chesterfield last week and I'm counting it!
Technically I think the mid-wales breeding birds are the only ones that still survive from the original population in the UK. It is also possible to see them in North Wales now as they have done so well. For me, the knowledge that most of the Red Kites in the UK are released because we pushed them to near-extinction takes a special edge off seeing them. This is not to say i'd rather not see them in the countryside at all, they are stunning birds all the same. Seeing a bird in the wild though, knowing that it has survived fairly independantly of humans can be one of the pleasures of birding. There have been reports of wing-tagged birds moving between the differing colonies lately which is good news for the gene flow though. Give it some time, when all the wing-tags have dropped off and i'll come round to the fact that the rest are wild! Thanks. Henry.
I thought it looked a tad cruel,carrying a bird the size of a red kite in a cat carrying box. Im sure if any of the public put a parrot the size of a red kite in a cat box,the rspca would come down on em like a ton of bricks-anyone who didn't see it,they showed them on the bbc local news programme at 6.30pm,and they definately were shown carrying them in individual cat carrying boxes,and they looked a bit stressed to my eyes
So which kites are the "real thing" exactly? The Yorkshire ones? The ones in the North East? Scotland? How about the couple of dozen you can see driving down the M40 - they're obviously bred pretty well and are quite wild?
I saw one over Chesterfield last week and I'm counting it!
I personally think that introduction is probably not neccessary. To keep introducing things all over the place,its great publicity for the rspb,but where do these young Kites come from?are there adults somewhere,that now have no young,or are these captive bred?If they are wild birds,then why not let the parents finish with them,and they would drift further afield naturally,and eventually would end up in the Lakes. I also find that seeing a Red kite with tags all over thier wings,is wrong also,almost every kite picture you see has a tag on it,or its been removed in photoshop.I like to see natural wild Red Kites.
I missed it myself but apparently it was on the wireless tonight (BBC North West) that they are releasing Red Kites into the Lake district.
I found a link here.
http://raptorpolitics.org.uk/?p=1255
This is great but there does seem to be a trend of re-intoducing things lately. That said the red Kites are going ftom strength to strength and will probably be here soon anyway under their own steam I have seen two in north cheshire in last 12 months.
