Kite tag

A walk around Tyn y Craig plantation to view the Ystwyth valley from above brought me adjacent to a small upland mire being contested by a pair of buzzards and a pair of kites.  Fortunately they didn't get aggressive but clearly boundaries were being marked and claim laid to a patch of suitable trees.  Through the scope I could read the tag as one kite briefly touched down in the marshy grassland; it subsequently flew around examining the grasses clutched in its feet.  They all looked spectacular sunlit against a lightly snow- dusted landscape of hills and woods.
Royal Blue 08

The Welsh Kite Trust was pleased and honoured to host the annual meeting of the UK and Ireland Red Kite Co-ordination Group last Thursday at the Brynafon Hotel adjacent to Gigrin Farm, Rhyader.  Unfortunately our Scottish colleagues couldn't make the journey but Dr Marc Ruddock and Adam McClure arrived from Ireland together with representatives from the Chilterns, East Midlands and Shropshire. We were especially pleased to welcome Ian Carter, renowned kite expert, from Natural England.

The breeding season report, published in full in Boda Wennol (Issue 27 Autumn 2012), was discussed and below is the map summarising current breeding status for those non-members of WKT.  It was of course a poor breeding year given the awful weather experienced during critical times in the nesting cycle and followed two very harsh winters which resulted in reduced productivity in all areas.

There followed a roundup of other threats experienced in the regions which identified accidental secondary poisoning by highly toxic second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides and lead as major problems. The rodenticides are ingested when feeding on rodents killed by poison and, being persistent, can build up to lethal levels. In some cases, the poisons used are so toxic that just a single rodent body may be enough to deliver a lethal dose. Publicity campaigns to encourage the use of alternative methods of rodent control and to use poisons with care have been undertaken to try to minimise the dangers. The recent widespread use of slug pellets in fields has also shown up in post-mortem analysis as these are attractive to other birds such as pigeons which are then scavenged when dead by kites and other animals.

Secondary poisoning by lead occurs when Red Kites scavenge on pest or game species that have been killed by lead ammunition, mainly from shotgun cartridges. A recent study found that 14% of Red Kites found dead in England had lead levels in their tissues sufficient to have caused their death. Whilst lead has been banned from use over most wetlands and for killing waterbirds it remains in common use in terrestrial habitats with consequences that are largely unseen unless specific studies are undertaken. It was agreed to ask Natural England to pursue this issue with the government and for lead poisoning to be added to the list of tested for poisons at post mortem.

Dr Rob McMahon then gave a most lucid explanation of the DNA research being undertaken at Aberystwyth University with a student funded by the Welsh Kite Trust, which has thrown up a host of further interesting lines of enquiry.

After a hurried but tasty lunch interval we hastened up the lane to watch feeding time at Gigrin which never fails to impress...thank you Chris and staff at Gigrin Farm.

Reconvening to tie up loose ends it was widely agreed that it was important to keep up kite monitoring, despite funding and manpower difficulties in many areas, and that there was still a need to fight the corner for what remains one of the world's rarest birds.

That ain't helpful!

Just had a call from Chris Griffiths of Montgomeryshire Barn Owl Group who informed me that one of its members, Rowland Pugh, watched a Goshawk take a Red Kite clean out of the sky at Tre'ddol near Aberystwyth, yesterday. Apparently there was absolutely no competition - why doesn't that surprise me! Hope it doesn't make a habit of it!

Another leucistic kite on the loose!

After over 12 months in captivity leucistic kite Black/White J6 was finally released from Gigrin Farm early this morning having been cared for by a multitude of people. Special thanks to Chris and Colin at Gigrin Farm for housing and feeding him, to Megan Morris Jones and Fran at Cuan House Wildlife Rescue for transporting him back and forward to Much Wenlock. Thanks to falconer John Jones for getting it fit to fly and for Raptor Foundation and RSPB Investigations Department for their involvement last year. We very much hope to see a bit more of J6 at Gigrin over the next few months. Hopefully he will adjust to life in the wild and having to find his own dinner - although admittedly if he stays at Gigrin he won't have to look too far!

kite at sea!

Not every day I see a kite on the beach but this one at Llanon, Cardigan Bay, is a regular. Still looks a little strange with this background!
A more typical pose is on the new 2012 Xmas card: a superb image from our Chairman, Prof Mike Hayward, of a kite soaring over the winter landscape of Cwm Mwyro near Strata Florida: see Welsh Kite Trust new website for details of how to purchase.  This location has,incidentally, been the long term home of an escaped Golden Eagle who is currently exciting visitors to the boardwalk on Cors Caron including our Patron Iolo Williams trying to make a film about it/(probably) him.

Kite vs Buzzard

Took my brother and his kids over to see the kites been fed at Gigrin last Thursday. Whilst sat in the hides watching the hundreds of birds diving in for food he expressed amazement at how they never collided. A short time late, whilst heading back home, my mobile went and it was Colin at Gigrin ringing to say they had a kite with a broken wing in the feeding area. It turns out that seconds after we left a kite stooping in for a meal had hit a Buzzard leaving after eating its! Anyone whose ever handled a Buzzard will know that they are a pretty solid bit of raptor! Anyway end result was an unfortunate kite with the outer half of its wing sticking out at not a good angle! Luckily my brother was heading back to Telford so could drop the kite off at Much Wenlock where Megan Morris Jones at Cuan House Wildlife Centre had arranged to get it checked out by her local vets. The bird was x-rayed but, as I had feared, the break was in the carpal joint, and these do not heal without causing permanent stiffening of the wing which renders the bird virtually flightless. Sadly, as our policy is one of no permanent retention, the bird was euthanised immediately .

That's got to be over 100 in Kite years!

We have a new longevity record for a Welsh ringed kite, at 8,723 days or about six weeks under 24 years.

HT27208 was ringed as a single chick in a nest near Ffarmers in Carmarthenshire on 17th June 1988 and was also tagged White H. It weighed 860gm, and was subsequently sexed as a female from the blood sample collected at the same time. She was found freshly dead on 5th May 2012 at near Harford which is about 9.5km SSW of where she was reared.

There is quite a long list of tag sightings in the early years. In the first winter she was seen at Ty'n-domen, Tregaron (the original Red Kite feeding station set up by Frances Evans)  (8,5km N) on nine occasions between 21st November 1988 and 1st March 1989. In the first summer she was at Cwm Ystwyth (26km NNE) on 16th May 1989  and she was recorded there again in her third winter on 14th January 1991

In her third summer she was fouind breeding near Pumsaint, 9km S of the birthplace and reared a brood of two.

She bred again at the same place in 1992, rearing a single chick. She had a new mate, a tagged bird from near Cwrt-y-cano, HT27225, also reared in 1988. She had now lost one tag. She could have bred at the same place in 1993, but if so had lost both tags, and there were no further tag readings. Of course it's now pretty obvious that she must have continued to breed in the area for many more years. This bird beats the previous longevity record by about six weeks. That was a male HW08418 which was ringed near Pontrhydfendigaid in 1968 and which died near  Tregaron, probably in mid-March 1992.

Thanks to Peter Davis for the above information. Amazingly, I can still remember tagging this bird as I'm pretty sure there was a Kestrel's nest lower down in the same tree!