Red kite - WikiHQ

thumb|Red Kite at Bwlch Nant yr Arian, Wales, a local feeding ground.

The red kite (Milvus milvus) is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as eagles, buzzards, and harriers. The species currently breeds only in Europe, though it formerly also bred in West Asia and Northwest Africa.

Taxonomy

The red kite was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Falco milvus.

M. m. milvus (Linnaeus, 1758) – Europe and Northwest Africa to the Middle East
M. m. fasciicauda Hartert, 1914 – the Cape Verde Islands

The subspecies M. m. fasciicauda is almost certainly extinct.

The genus Milvus contains two other species: the black kite (M. migrans) and the yellow-billed kite (M. aegyptius). A genetic study of kites in this area did not demonstrate any mtDNA from black kites in red kites or vice versa.

Description

thumb|right|[[Leucistic form]]

thumb|A red kite skull

thumb|Red kite, falconry Adlerwarte Obernberg am Inn, [[Upper Austria]]

Red kites are long They are monogamous and the pair-bond in populations is probably maintained during the winter, particularly when the pair remain on their breeding territory. For migrant populations the fidelity to a particular nesting site means that the pair-bond is likely to be renewed each breeding season. The nest is normally placed in a fork of a large hardwood tree at a height of between above the ground. A pair will sometimes use a nest from the previous year and can occasionally occupy an old nest of the common buzzard. The nest is built by both sexes. The male brings dead twigs in length which are placed by the female. The nest is lined with grass and sometimes also with sheep's wool. Unlike the black kite, no greenery is added to the nest. Both sexes continue to add material to the nest during the incubation and nestling periods. Nests vary greatly in size and can become large when the same nest is occupied for several seasons.

The eggs are laid at three-day intervals. The clutch is usually between one and three eggs but four and even five eggs have occasionally been recorded. The eggs are non-glossy with a white ground and red-brown spots. The average size is with a calculated weight of . In Britain and central Europe, laying begins at the end of March but in the Mediterranean area laying begins in early March. The eggs are mainly incubated by the female, but the male will relieve her for short periods while she feeds. The male will also bring food for the female. Incubation starts as soon as the first egg is laid. Each egg hatches after 31 to 32 days but as they hatch asynchronously a clutch of three eggs requires 38 days of incubation. The chicks are cared for by both parents. The female them for the first 14 days while the male brings food to the nest which the female feeds to the chicks. Later both parents bring items of food which are placed in the nest to allow the chicks to feed themselves. The nestlings begin climbing onto branches around their nest from 45 days but they rarely before 48–50 days and sometimes not until they are 60–70 days of age. The young spend a further 15–20 days in the neighbourhood of the nest being fed by their parents. Only a single brood is raised each year but if the eggs are lost the female will relay.

The maximum age recorded is 25 years and 8 months for a ringed bird in Germany. The BTO longevity record for Britain and Ireland is also 25 years and 8 months for a bird found dead in Buckinghamshire in 2018. In 2023, one of the first red kites reintroduced to the UK was found injured in Oxfordshire and later died, aged 29.

Food and feeding

thumb|Side view of adult, Wales

The red kites are generalist scavengers and predators. Their diets consist mainly of carrion of large domestic animals such as sheep and pigs, roadkill, and stranded fish. They also take small mammals such as mice, voles, shrews, stoats, young hares and rabbits. Live birds are also taken, especially young or wounded, such as crows, doves, starlings, thrushes, larks, gulls, and waterfowl. Here, up to 5% of householders have provided supplementary food for red kites, with chicken being the predominant meat provided.

As scavengers, red kites are particularly susceptible to poisoning. Illegal poison baits set for foxes or crows are indiscriminate and kill protected birds and other animals. One such occurrence took place in Marlow, Buckinghamshire (a town near a major reintroduction site for the species in the UK in the nearby village of Stokenchurch), in which red kites swooped down to steal sandwiches from people in one of the town's parks.

Distribution and status

thumb|right|Red kite in flight in Gredos Mountains, Avila, Spain

Red kites inhabit broadleaf woodlands, pastures, mixed farmland, valleys and wetland edges, up to at least elevation. Most red kites that breed in the northern European mainland used to move south or west in winter, typically wintering in Spain and other parts of western Europe with a mild climate, as well as northwestern Africa (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) and Turkey. In recent decades, an increasing number of red kites from the northern European mainland have stayed in the region year-round. The red kite is the official landscape bird of the Swedish province of Scania, and depicted on the coat of arms of the municipality of Tomelilla.

United Kingdom

thumb|Red kite, Gigrin Farm, Wales

thumb|Red kites at the feeding station, [[Laurieston, Glasgow, Scotland.]]

thumb|A red kite soaring in Hampshire, UK

In the United Kingdom, red kites were ubiquitous scavengers that lived on carrion and rubbish. Shakespeare's King Lear describes his daughter Goneril as a detested kite, and he wrote "when the kite builds, look to your lesser linen" in reference to them stealing washing hung out to dry in the nesting season.

A sighting of the first red kite in London for 150 years was reported in The Independent newspaper in January 2006

Ireland

Red kites were extinct in Ireland by the middle 19th century due to persecution, poisoning and woodland clearance. In May 2007, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government Dick Roche announced an agreement to bring at least 100 birds from Wales to restock the population as part of a five-year programme in the Wicklow Mountains, similar to the earlier golden eagle reintroduction programme. They cover most of the countries in which red kites are believed to have bred.

{| class="wikitable"

! Country

! Year

! Pairs

! Trend

! Notes

| 0

| Bred 1906

| 0

| Bred in the 19th century, now extinct

| 2019

| 90–130

| Extinct 1950, recolonised 1970s; 5–10 pairs in 2000 and since then rapidly increasing

| 1997

| 1

| Extinct 1950s, recolonised 1985; 10 pairs 1990

| 2020

| 350–400

| Declined to 1–2 known pairs in 1967, then recovery

| Extinct c. 1920, then recolonised (from Germany/Sweden) 1970s. Slow increase up until the early 2000s (17 known pairs in 2001), since then rapidly increasing

| Extinct 1852, recolonised 1970s, but highly irregular until 2008, since then regular and increasing

| 2010

| 5

| First successful breeding reported in 2010 following reintroduction in 2008

| 0

| 1980

| 0

| Bred occasionally in the 19th century

| 2012

| 1,500–1,800

| Increase from the low-point of 30–50 pairs in the 1970s and the Bwlch Nant yr Arian forest visitor centre in Ceredigion

Sources

External links

Friends of Red Kites - Details about the reintroduced kites in the Derwent Valley, Gateshead
BBC Wales Nature - Red Kite footage
BBC Report about this bird's redemption in UK culture from a hated shithawk to a beloved bird
The Welsh Kite Trust - includes UK breeding reports
About Red Kites - includes latest figures available in UK
Details Red Kites in the Chilterns - about the reintroduced kites in the Chilterns
Red Kites in Yorkshire
Red Kites in Berkshire (Berkshire Ornithological Club) - 2006/2007 Survey
<nowiki>Adult and juvenile Red Kite wing identification images (PDF; 5.6 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze</nowiki>