A Thing of Beauty
The big bird rides the wind with an effortless grace beautiful to
see, hardly making a movement save for an occasional slight flick
of its long forked tail to change direction. I watch spellbound
through my binoculars as it soars back and forth over the
semi-wild ground beyond the end of my garden, head down, intently
watching the ground for prey. So far it has been no more than a
black silhouette against the brightness of the sky; but now it
seems to have spotted something, for it is circling lower and
lower, and as it does so the colours of its plumage are revealed,
rufous brown, creamy white, and black.
As it comes to ground behind the bushes near the pond a pair of
jackdaws flutter up in indignation. For a moment it looks as
though they are going to mob it, but with lordly disdain and a
few powerful wing-beats it rises above them as if pulled by an
invisible string, and flies off towards the north.
The appearance of the red kite in the skies above our village has
been the highlight of a natural year that has otherwise been
pretty miserable so far, except for a week or so of fine warm
weather in March. The wild flowers are late blooming, and the
house martins that hawked for insects around the houses and over
the pond last year have not yet put in an appearance. But we have
the red kite. I did spot one a couple of times last year, but
never nearer than a couple of miles from the village. In the last
month I have seen one from outside my house once or twice every
week. With a bit of luck that means a pair are nesting not so
very far away, and we will have their company for some time to
come. And that is a pleasure and a privilege.
In Medieval times red kites were so common, scavenging on the
streets of London like the pigeons do today, that they were
widely regarded as vermin. But over the centuries their numbers
were so reduced by persecution, accidental poisoning and habitat
change that for most of the twentieth century they were to be
found only in one remote forest in Mid-Wales. So close did they
become to extinction that one recent DNA study indicated that all
the native kites in Britain today are descended from just one
female.
From that low point in the 1930’s their numbers slowly increased,
and from the 1980’s the population has been boosted by
reintroductions from abroad in several locations up and down
Britain, until now their numbers have passed into four figures.
If you see a kite soaring above the M40 between London and
Oxford, your eyes are not deceiving you: the colony artificially
started in the Chilterns has been a particularly successful one.
The re-establishment of the red kite has been one of the triumphs
of recent conservation, and the RSPB named it as the Bird of the
Century.
But that is not the only reason I feel privileged and blessed
when I see one above my garden, nor even that it is likely to be
a descendant of the population from the original Welsh stronghold
rather than a foreign introduction. It is the sheer beauty of the
bird: the rich colours of its plumage and the easy grace of its
flight. The thing you fly on a string was called after the bird,
not the other way round.
P.S. The house martins are back. I saw my first one this year
while taking a break outside from writing this.
7 Comments
In Andover, we occasionally get much more exotic visitors. The Hawk Conservancy is only a couple of miles away, and they have some free-flying birds that occasionally wander further than intended. We once had a very exotic-looking hawk perch on our garage roof, and called them, to be told it was an escapee. It returned home when it got hungry!
We have plenty of lambs round here too, though not many calves. This is Wales, after all.
BTW my elder son lives in Norwich.
Glad to see others taking delight in the beauty of the red kite.
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