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.

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

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.

Radio Wales Broadcast on Irish Kite Re-introductions

If you would like an insight into why there haven't been many posts from me in the past six weeks you could listen to the following radio broadcast on the BBC's iplayer. It is only available until 8 am on 18th July!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t1vzb/Country_Focus_11_07_2010/

ACROSS THE SEA TO IRELAND

On 28th June the second batch of Welsh Red Kite chicks sailed across to Ireland making 53 in total for this year. This was the maximum amount we were allowed to collect under our Countryside Council for Wales license so the Irish conservationists at the Golden Eagle Trust and RSPB Northern Ireland were well pleased.

Collecting was not as difficult as last year as there were far more broods of two chicks around and the breeding success appears to have been pretty good. Will know more when we analyse the breeding figures collected by all the nestwatchers. So far, over 230 Welsh kite chicks have been ringed and tagged too. Many thanks to all the watchers for their help and to all the landowners who allowed us to collect a chick.

Thank you

Just a quick note to say a huge thank you to Tony for allowing me to go out climbing with him for a few days this ringing/tagging season, just hope I was more help than hindrance. Already looking forward to next year.

Kite caught 'cat-napping'!

I checked one of my local kite nests again today and this one is situated in a mature larch wood which has a thick luxuriant growth of grass at base level because the relatively open canopy allows the sunlight to get through. On my approach to the nest I climbed a gate and skirted around the field below the nest wood. I was a bit concerned because I couldn't see a kite flying around and had visions of the nest having failed. I walked quietly through the wood edging closer towards the nest and then to my surprise I found myself standing under the branch of a larch tree near the nest tree which had one of the adult birds perched on it! It sort of had its back to me and was about 35-40 feet up. Clearly the bird had not heard or seen me approach. I was quite proud of that actually! Anyway I quietly set up my scope and trained it on the nest. I honestly thought the bird was sick or something but in fact I think it was just 'cat-napping' and enjoying basking in the warmth of the sunshine. Parenthood has taken its toll on it I think! Anyway I kind of 'deliberately' made a noise to alert it as it was getting quite embarrassing by now. So here am I looking at the nest with my scope standing directly under the bird which should have been alert and guarding it. I reckon that would be a sackable infringement in the human world! The bird 'woke up' startled and rapidly vacated its perch!
Anyway I was quite amused by the whole episode. I've never gotten so close to a bird of prey without being noticed before. Oh by the way there was a single downy chick in the nest. Lets hope when it grows up its more alert than its parent!