Article for 2011 Feb 28

2011

Appendix

This was a monthly series of articles each focussing on a particular avian species I find interesting, though “Caledonia Gulls” features several species and is in poem form.

Feb 28 Mon “Red all about it”

I saw my first red kite on New Year’s Day 2011. It was on the Black Isle, one of the few areas of Britain where red kites are found. (The Black Isle is actually a multicoloured peninsula north of Inverness in Scotland.) The bird swooped down and landed on a fence-post on a field, then flew off again a few seconds later.

The first part of the bird’s English name derives from the colour of the bird, which is red. The “kite” bit can refer to a flying toy, like a red kite on a string, or a dishonest person. (A bit unfair on the birds!) The Milvus in the scientific name is Latin for “kite” (the bird).

Red kites were once common across Britain (Shakespeare mentioned kites at least fifteen times), and were liked during the Middle Ages for eating the bits of unpleasant meat that littered the streets. It was illegal to kill a kite, and kite-killers received capital punishment. But during the sixteenth century, kites began to be seen as vermin, it became legal to kill a kite, and kite-killers were even rewarded. Game-keepers accused the birds of taking grouse and pheasants; the increasing rarity of the birds made them more valuable to egg-collectors and suchlike. In 1871 the red kite was extinct in England; by 1879 the red kite was extinct in Scotland, and only a few survived in Wales.

Fortunately, the numbers of red kites in Wales began to increase in the late 20th century, though slowly; there were twenty pairs in 1960 (all derived from a single female). Due in part to efforts from the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage, the red kite species has been reintroduced to the Black Isle (where I saw two kites) and five other places in Britain.