Red Kite

Stunning bird of prey!.........Love the wing frilling and forked tail. In the summer we had a sparrowhawk in our shed, it was amazing to see it up close and the size and weight as it jumped from beam to beam was amazing.

Great pic

Nice photo I was watching the red kites here this morning ,are,nt they just beautiful

Fab Photo Wagger was it flying over your Garden? :)

brilliant photo

You were lucky to take this. When I try they always fly away bafore I can get the camera ready.

Yes Jacque they fly over our garden every day. Might be because we feed them so they come to check up. We put out uncooked chicken wing tips, things like that on a flat roof then whistle. Last summer we had about a dozen of them circling then diving over our heads to take the food. I've yet to sit in the garden with the camera when they are feeding - maybe next spring.
They nest in the woods behind my garden. They also nest near my brother's house in Hedgerley in a tree just behind his house so he and his wife were able to watch them building a nest while lying in bed in the mornings - and other times!

Don't think we have any 'honey eaters' in the UK. They don't seem to scare the other birds at all, in fact the rooks and crows 'mob' them very successfully. Red Kites are also scavengers which were nearly extinct in the UK, just hanging on in mid-Wales. They were reintroduced into England in the 1990's and have been very successful, now covering a large area of southern England. I love watching them every day.

Wow Wagger Having your own wild Kites 2fed in your own Garden how Fantastic is that? :) Id never move from my bedroom window if there was a Kits Nest i could see form there :)

I went to visit the red kite centre in Rhayader in mid Wales in 2006 and watched in amazement as the kites flew in from all direction at feeding time. They swooped down to collect the food without landing. I then visited all the resevoirs in the beautiful Elan valley with it's eerie vast emptiness. Where I am in north Wales buzzards and herons are the most common large birds that I see. I have been trying to get a photo of one just like your magnificent shot virtually dead centre of the photo. I would give this a triple like if I could. Thank you for sharing this with us.

The wing tips look so like fingers to me..I watch the red tails through my telescope and see them close up...it is amazing how the feather fingers moved almost imperceptively can make flight adjustments with ease. Very nice photo....

Thanks for the comments everyone. I'll try for some more when the warmer weather arrives - too cold to sit still out there for me ! If you can catch a shot when the sun is low down you can see the colours of the undersides of their wings. There are some stunning shots on www.redkites.co.uk, well worth a visit. It must be smashing watching them at Rhayader, Gardeningfr.

I opened a window this morning to scare off a pigeon (they keep the small birds away from the feeders) and a Heron took off from the woods at the back of the house. B****y thing has had all the fish out of my pond - obviously still watching to see if there are any more.

ah the elusive red kite ~ i came down the M40 not so long ago to try to get a picture ~ they had all disappeared!!

It's never elusive round here, Sticki - I just wonder how they all find enough to eat!!!

I must have gone to the wrong place!!

I always see them around junction 3 of the M40 [i think] but not that day!!!

Junction 3 is the Beaconsfield junction - there are always more near junction 5, the Stokenchurch junction, where the original releases were done on Getty land. That's where you go through the chalk gap on the M40 down onto the Aylesbury Plain.

eys sorry i meant junction 5, it was near stokenchurch.