Monday 29 November 2010

Gigrin Farm - 29th November, 2010

On 29th November, 2010, I made my second visit of the second winter period to Gigrin Farm for the purpose of reading Red Kite tags.I later identified twenty seven (27) tagged birds all from the principality. There were not any foreign birds visible.There were two leucistic birds; the untagged very pale bird that is paler than black/orange 51.

What a difference a week makes oh and minus three degrees in temperature with about an inch of snow! The first winter (dark blue) tagged birds were present in some number. The details are below:-

Black/Blue: N9; f; 10; 37; 55; 50; Z1; 02; 68;

Black/black: a; 77; 68; 87; 89; 36;

N8Black/yellow: 23; Ace of Spades

Black/orange: 51; 65; 29;

Black/purple: J5;

Black/pink: 30; 36; L2; N7;

Black/white: 23;

If any of these are from nest monitored by fellow watchers please drop me an email with location details.

Friday 26 November 2010

Gigrin Farm – 22nd November, 2010

On 22nd November, 2010, I made my first visit of the second winter period to Gigrin Farm for the purpose of reading Red Kite tags.

On arrival, I saw many birds perched waiting for Chris Powell to start the tractor and deliver the food to the feeding area.

After reading a few tags I made my way to the viewing area, as I passed the rehabilitation aviary I saw a Harris’s Hawk perched on the roof, much to the concern of a buzzard in the aviary.

Chris almost immediately drove past on the tractor and the hawk followed, it had jesses and bells attached the legs!

I later identified twenty nine tagged birds all from the principality plus one from Northumberland.

There was also an untagged leucistic bird paler than black/orange 51. Surprisingly, there was not a single first winter tagged bird present (dark blue)

The details are below:-

Black/black: 11; 37; 50; 53; 55; 77; 99; b; H6; J5

Black/yellow: A4

Black/orange: 13; 51; 3 Domino

Black/green: 75

Black/purple: 52; 74; 82; C; H1

Black/pink: 69; E3; E7; F6; F8; N6

Pink/pink: 02

Monday 15 November 2010

RED KITE CHRISTMAS CARDS


As Christmas rapidly approaches I thought now was a good time (or maybe too late for some!) to remind everyone that the Welsh Kite Trust has a wide range of high quality, bi-lingual, Christmas and Blank cards for sale. This year's new card design is by renown local wildlife artist Terence Lambert and features a Red Kite over snow (now there's a surprise!).

If anyone is interested you can email me on info@welshkitetrust.org and I'll email you a pdf of our catalogue and order form.

Needless to say all profits go towards further kite (and other raptor) monitoring and research in Wales.