Hope for Britain’s Endangered Kites : Bird to Be Raised After Almost Vanishing From Isles

Once the majestic red kite, a huge hook-beaked bird of prey, soared in great numbers in the skies of Britain, scouring the ground for carrion.

It perched on medieval city roofs and picked clean the stinking streets. It cleansed the countryside and even plucked dead fish from the seas. It was fierce, prolific and a vibrant part of the scene.

Today it has vanished from both England and Scotland and only a tiny native group clings on in remote Welsh valleys. Vast numbers of this magnificent bird have been shot, trapped and poisoned, largely in the name of protecting his lordship’s game.

That may be about to change. The bird is being reintroduced. The idea is not new. It has been in the background for the past 10 years. Now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Nature Conservancy Council have started a project to re-establish the bird . They see it as an opportunity to test the health of Britain’s countryside and, in the long term, as an opportunity to link the kites of Europe with the tiny Welsh population.

Such a plan is only considered for birds that were previously established in the country. Before the experiment began questions needed to be answered. Had some of the problems which led to the bird’s disappearance been reduced? Could they be protected once freed? Today the experts think the answers are yes. Times are changing. Many farmers are adapting their working practices in the interests of wildlife and even gamekeepers now recognize that they share the countryside with city dwellers and birds of prey.

Hopes for Spreading

So now it is hoped that from specially chosen reintroduction sites the kite will spread out and establish across the whole country, even between countries. If the bird makes that vital jump between Europe and Wales it will be better placed to face any loss of habitat or decimation through disease and also, it is hoped, the attention of some lingering gamekeepers. Most poisoned kites are a by-product of illegal fox baiting and trapping.

This summer the project is getting off the ground. Eleven birds are the nucleus of the experiment. They have been located in secret sites in England and Scotland, both, surprisingly, just a kite’s flight from a major industrial conurbation. Ten of the newly introduced birds come from Sweden, flown over by Nimrod courtesy of the RAF. The 11th comes from the Welsh population. Sweden has only 150 breeding pairs so the young taken were the smallest in the nest, the ones least likely to survive naturally. But given good food and care over here they have every chance of developing into good adult specimens.

Once it was a capital crime to kill the kite because of its scavenging role. But the bird continued to be persecuted, mainly because it had a reputation for taking domestic fowls. In one season during medieval times 380 kites were killed in Tenterden, Kent, alone. At the same time better levels of hygiene and the lack of carrion contributed to the disappearance.

In 1905 there were only about a dozen kites left in Britain, all in the Upper Towey Valley. By 1986 the position had improved slightly. Forty-eight pairs hatched 29 chicks. But Towey is not a naturally hospitable place for kites--the carrion is scarce. Their young are small and far less healthy than their European cousins. Last year 10 adult birds were found dead, mostly poisoned by gamekeepers.

Pheasants Get Priority

Many dedicated people have worked to increase the Welsh kite numbers in recent years. However, as the birds stray beyond the small protected area so they tend to fail, the needs of pheasants come before the needs of kites. The Welsh kites are in a ghetto--unable to reach kites in northern Europe and increase their chances of survival.

Kites need a countryside unpolluted by pesticides, untidy and more traditionally managed than is the case in most farming areas today. Hedgerows, copses, woodland and bills are havens for kites and it was to two landowners with this kind of property that the NCC and the RSPB turned.

For the experiment the young birds have been installed in large wooden cages and protected from as much disturbance as possible. But they are wild birds and they will be released as soon as they are old and strong enough to fly free. It is hoped initially that they will go only short distances, returning for the food placed out for them. But slowly they will venture farther until fully wild.

Their care is a monumental task for the project’s Dr. Ian Evans, an acknowledged expert in a wide theater of ecology, who has reared many orphaned and damaged birds of prey, and has both the technical and handling skills to make the project work. He spent weeks studying the Welsh kites. So that the birds do not become over-tame he is simulating the actions of a mother bird by providing meat at regular intervals through a small hatch at the back of the large cages. His hand imitates the movement of her beak throwing the food into the “nest”--a simple ledge in a corner of the cage. The food is provided by the English estate’s gamekeeper who is keen to show that not all his ilk are against birds of prey. His supply of local squirrels and other tidbits provide a balanced diet for the young birds.

Four times daily Ian visits his kite families, watching them for at least 12 hours, seven days a week. And this, he says, is the easy time.

At about 3 months the birds will be set free from the cages--the age they would leave the nest in the wild. But Ian will continue feeding them through next winter, again as the parent birds would do; their most vulnerable time being when the food and weather is against them. In the spring another 10 birds will be introduced and so on for at least 10 years until the population can be seen to be both thriving and breeding.

Would Improve on Nature

The chairman, Dr. Mike Pienkowski, responsible for the ornithology of the NCC, hopes the project will do better than nature. “The usual death rate is 50% in nature. We have to improve on that if our kites are to grow to maturity and breed. In this project natural selection takes a back seat.”

The success of the enterprise will not be known until the birds start to breed at about the age of 4. Previous experience in reintroduction with the white-tailed sea eagle in Scotland, the only other major program in this country, has shown that 10 years may pass before the birds start to breed.

Meanwhile the birds will have to be tracked over thousands of hours. Each bird will be released with a small radio transmitter attached to its tail feathers. The tracker, using a direction-finding radio receiver, has to locate the bird to a small area before homing in quietly in order to avoid disturbing it. The tracking is vital, to locate the birds’ nests at breeding time. Only in this way can a watch be kept for egg collectors and other human predators. People will be the problem. Down the centuries people have always been fascinated by kites.

They are known for plunging from rooftops and snatching food from the hand--an experience much enjoyed by children in towns throughout the country until a century ago. But how do you enable the thousands who are keen to see the bird enjoy it without causing disturbance?

The bird comes first. To that end the new locations will remain secret, inaccessible places on private land. People will eventually see the kites as they mature and fly in search of food. Roosts and favored feeding areas may be discovered, but, hopefully, the initial homes will remain secret. Until, that is, numbers have grown. We are still a far cry from the days when Shakespeare could talk of London as “a city of crows and kites.”