…Red Kite feeding station, farm and our home. As we go about our daily routines here each day is different: the wildlife on the farm, the farm seasons and our pets all give us endless sources of interest and subjects for musing on. There is also, of course, the great British topic of the weather….
Just to let you all know that we’ve also had a Dumfries & Galloway youngster hanging around since sunday. Green/White 64 is a 2011 male, from a brood of three, ringed/tagged on the 21st June at a site just southwest of Castle Douglas. Many thanks to Stewart Niven for the cracking photo of him!!
Nesting season this year proved to be something of a roller-coaster ride for central Scotland’s Red Kites and visitors to the Argaty feeding station were able to watch all the action on our new nest camera.
From the moment that the CCTV camera was installed on 5th May, the highs and lows of a young Kite’s life could be seen.
Getting Started
The process of deciding upon a suitable location for the camera to be installed in began on 11th April when a female Kite was spotted incubating eggs on a nest near to the feeding station. The nest, as we would later discover, contained two eggs, which is a fairly common number for a breeding pair of Kites to lay.
Having identified the nest location, it was essential to allow the female Kite some time to settle before installing the camera. This was necessary as we did not want to risk scaring the female for fear she might abandon the nest. We therefore waited 23 days before we set the camera up.
The installation was done by a team of expert tree climbers from the forestry commission, who set up the device in the neighbouring tree to the Kites’ nest. Once the camera was in place we then waited for just under a month until, a few days ahead of schedule, the two chicks hatched.
Disaster Strikes
For the first ten days of the chicks’ lives, things were going very well. Both looked healthy and were regularly fed by the adult male and protected by the female. Then, disaster struck. Over a twenty-four hour period on 23rd May, Scotland was battered by 100 mph winds.
For a few hours we watched the CCTV footage of the young Kites clinging to the nest for dear life; it looked as though they could be blown from the tree at any point. Then falling trees in the area hit the electricity lines and we lost power until late the next day. The uncertainty about what was going on was unbearable, all that we could do was hope that the Kites had survived the storms.
As luck would have it our prayers were answered. The nest and camera trees stayed standing, even while firs all around them had come crashing down; both of the chicks had survived too. Unfortunately many other Kite chicks were not as lucky. In total we lost 30 percent of our Kite nests – either through them being blown from the tree or from the whole tree coming down. If Kites usually have up to three chicks in their breeding season then we can estimate that anything between 20 and 60 chicks were lost, all in a twenty-four hour period.
Once the storms had passed we began to repair the damage that had been caused. A falling tree had struck the camera, knocking it off-centre. We therefore had to scale the tree once more and reposition the camera. We did that and then we were back in business.
Back on Track
When Red Kite chicks are around five weeks old, the staff at Argaty and RSPB employees begin the process of tagging their wings and ringing their legs.
A lot can be discovered about a Kite, simply by spotting these wing-tags. Each Kite chick hatched in central Scotland is fitted with a red tag upon their left wing. (The colour of this tag denotes the fact that the bird is from this part of Britain. Every area of Britain in which the birds have been reintroduced has a different left-wing tag colour). As well as being able to see where a Kite was hatched, the wing-tags also help the viewer to know when the bird hatched. This year’s chicks were fitted with white tags upon their right wing. Every year the right wing-tag colour changes. Chicks hatched in 2010, for example, were fitted with blue tags on their right wing.
Each Red Kite is given an individual identity number, which is printed upon their tags. On 19th June, the nest camera chicks were fitted with tags reading “S3″ and “S4″.
Once the ringing and tagging process was completed, we foolishly believed that the remaining weeks that the chicks spent in the nest would be quiet ones. It didn’t quite turn out that way. On 26th June, we noticed that one of the chicks – “S4″ as we now referred to it – was missing from the nest. We hurried up to the nest area to see whether the chick had fallen to the ground but there was no sign of it anywhere around the base of the tree. It was only when the professional tree-climber arrived that we discovered what had happened. The chick was found in a rather precarious position. It had fallen from the nest and was now perched on a somewhat shaky branch below. The youngster was returned to the nest and early in July, both chicks fledged the nest.
In the end, 76 chicks fledged the nest in central Scotland. Although many nests failed, 40 were successful and we now have around 300 Red Kites in the area. Had the weather been better, we may have seen a higher number of chicks taking to the skies however it was hugely rewarding to see the two from the CCTV nest successfully fledge.
Thanks to the camera, we are looking forward to following the Kites closely again next year, whatever the weather brings!
Our swallows and house martins have started to gather on the wires around the farm. It’s a stark reminder that Autumn is on its way and our favourite summer visitors will soon be migrating back to southern Africa……a 5,000 mile journey is particularly impressive, given the size of the birds involved! They generally begin their mammoth journey in October, although this seems to be getting increasingly late, with some birds not migrating at all! The BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) confirmed last year that a swallow had successfully stayed and survived a winter in the UK!!
Sorry for the delay getting this information out. It’s been a mixed year for the kites, with 40 successful pairs in Central Scotland fledging 76 chicks. The fact that we’ve had so many chicks is amazing, as we lost 30% of our kite nests in the storms that battered the area back in May…..the fact that any nests survived the 100 mph winds is a miracle! The above picture shows how one lucky chick clung on when it’s nest was half hanging out the tree – thankfully keith was on hand to do some major repairs! The 2011 wing-tag colour is White, with some of the young are starting to appear at the feeding station.
As many of you will recall, one of our ewes (aka ‘the traffic light’) was carrying quintuplets (yes that is five!!) when we scanned them back in March. Great news – she gave birth this afternoon…….five alive!! This is only the second time ever that we’ve had quintuplets on the farm….Niall was fairly chuffed with the result!
We are really sorry to hear about the death of Elizabeth Taylor yesterday…..but the legend lives on! Our oldest red kite is 15 years old and has had the affectionate nickname of ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ for quite a few years, due to the fact that unusually (for kites) she is on husband number four! Unfortunately two got poisoned and one didn’t make the grade! Husband number four has been a resounding success, plus is a toy-boy, as he is only 13!! 
Just found out yesterday that one of our first year kites spent Christmas in Spain. British Red Kites are mainly sedentary, although juvenile birds often disperse widely in the autumn and then usually return in the spring….but this is not always the case.
Pablo Antonio Álvarez Valdés reported the bird in an area of countryside near ‘La Espina’, in the region of Asturias, northern Spain. The area has been extensively monitored since October 2010, with large groups of kites gathering (maximum of 17 birds together). Our kite has been seen on a few occasions, but was spotted for the first time on the 24th December by Pablo’s partner, then again on the 29th meaning it spent Christmas day in Spain…..alright for some!
The 2010 youngster is from the Central Scotland population (Red/Blue wingtags), although no individual numbers have been observed, so we can’t establish exactly which nest it’s fledged from. This bird hasn’t quite broken our personal record for the furthest travelled kite, but it’s certainly a long way from home and has covered about 920 miles!
In December 2003 one of our red kites flapped its way into the record books after being recovered 1,054 miles away in Portugal, at the time making its journey the longest recorded flight of any such UK bird. Workers at a small quarry near Airo, just north of Portugal’s second largest city, Porto, recovered the bird. It had a broken wing and was taken to a raptor recovery centre at a nearby national park, where it underwent veterinary treatment. Thankfully it made a full recovery and was released back into the wild a few months later.
During spring 2004, we monitored the home population, but kept an eye out for the return of this long distance traveller, as returning to the natal site is quite usual for this species. Red kites are strong fliers and this journey would not pose a major problem provided weather conditions are favourable, but the bird decided to stay in Portugal….and who can blame it!
The previous record of a Scottish red kite involved a bird which flew 983 miles from near Dingwall, Ross-shire. Unfortunately this kite was found dead as a result of colliding with power lines near Bilbao, Spain, in 1999.
The North Scotland team reclaimed the title for the longest recorded flight of a UK red kite in November 2008. One of their kites was observed on the island of Corvo in the Azores……a whopping 1,716 miles! It remains only the second record of a red kite on this island group. The youngster was originally ringed at a nest near the Black Isle in July 2008.
Our bird in Spain has done well……we want the title back!!
Myself and tom had the honour of being invited to the launch of the latest PAW Scotland Poisoning Hotspot Maps, published today. They show that Scotland’s birds of prey continue to be poisoned with illegal chemicals.
Figures from the Scientific Advisory Service for Scottish Agriculture (SASA) show that 28 birds were poisoned between January and December 2010. We obviously have a vested interest in red kites and since their re-intoduction 71 have been confirmed victims of poison abuse!
The maps clearly show where confirmed poisonings have taken place and the Scottish Government, RSPB Scotland and the Scottish Rural Property and Businesses Association have all been involved in their publication on behalf on the PAW Scotland Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group.
Minister for the Environment and Climate Change Roseanna Cunningham attended the launch at the Doune Estate in Stirlingshire earlier today (see picture).
We had a great sighting on Sunday 1st March. Green/white 5 is a 2002 female from Dumfries and Galloway (D&G). She was originally from the Black Isle, but was one of twenty supplied for the South West Scotland re-introduction project.
She was released from the secret cages on the Galloway Kite Trail in July, but dispersed very quickly, with her last recorded in D&G on the 20th August 2002. Only two months later she was located in Central Scotland for the first time.
Red kites usually start breeding when they are 2-3 years old, so when she was spotted at Argaty for the first time in February 2005, it proved she had settled in the area to raise future generations! Over the years her breeding performance has had mixed fortunes and her nest failed last year!
She was last spotted at the hide in February 2007, but it’s strange that she’s not a regular at the feeding station, considering she breeds in the locality! Other neighbouring pairs in the vicinity also do not use the feeding station, which is a great indication of good natural food supply and further proof that our population are not dependant on the small amount of food that we supply!
Fingers crossed she has a better breeding season and produces a good number of young this year!
Sorry to have to report that we picked up a dead kite on the 13th December 2010. RED/BLUE 31, was from a brood of three on the farm last summer, but she had not been seen at the hide since the 16th November. Sorry for the delay in reporting this, but all of these incidents must be investigated before we can go public.
Although it initially looked like a case of starvation, she was, as standard recovered by the police and sent to the laboratory for post mortem. Thankfully the kite tested negative for the commonly abused pesticides and other illegal poisons. Starvation remains a likely cause of death, as she had lost 25% of her bodyweight since she was ringed and tagged back in June.
Apparently, she was carrying a low concentration of a rodenticide, which could have been picked up from eating live or dead rats in an area where they were being controlled. On this occasion the quantity of rat poison was not sufficient to have caused the death of this bird. Nevertheless, it is a valuable reminder of how potentially vulnerable kites are to picking up rodenticide from affected rats – hence the ongoing campaign to educate rodenticide users about following the label instructions on containers, to keep rat control within the law and minimise the risk to other wildlife.
There is a legitimate need for rat populations to be controlled in many areas, particularly around farm steadings and other rural sites, but rodenticide poisoning is a particularly painful way for any animal to die. Many rodenticides contain anticoagulants, which gather in the liver and cause heavy internal bleeding.
Kites are predominantly scavengers, meaning they like to scour the countryside for dead animals to feed upon. This lifestyle can unfortunately make them vulnerable to the use of poisons in our countryside. The RSPB has produced an information leaflet on how to effectively control rodent infestation in a responsible way. This leaflet contains impartial advice and best practice guidelines, such as searching for and correct disposal of dead and dying rats.
The free leaflet entitled ‘Rat poison and the threat to wildlife’ may be obtained by contacting the RSPB on 01463 715000 or downloading the leaflet via the link below:
http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/ratpoison_tcm6-16130.pdf
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