Red Kite Milvus milvus
Red Kite, Oxfordshire, England, June 2021 - click for larger image England and Spain

Red Kite is distributed in most of Europe and part of north Africa. See the distribution map at xeno-canto. After much persecution, a relict population survived in Wales and now, through reintroductions and a rapid spread, there are populations in England and Scotland. From being a rarity in Suffolk a few years ago it is now not unusual to see a Red Kite.

Red Kite, Monks Eleigh, Suffolk, England, March 2021 - click for larger image It is an extremely graceful bird with a whitish head, chestnut body and upper tail, black tips to its long wings, a conspicuous white patch at the base of the primaries and a long, deeply forked tail.

It needs woodland for nesting and roosting but more open country for hunting its prey.

Red Kitebeing mobbed by Carrion Crow, Oxfordshire, England, February 2004 - click for larger image It feeds on a wide variety of items and is a scavenger as well as a hunter. It also steals food from other birds and raids nests. The 3rd photo shows a Red Kite being mobbed by a Carrion Crow Corvus corone and the 4th shows one being mobbed by a Jackdaw Corvus monedula. Photo 2 shows one near a Common Buzzard Buteo buteo.
Red Kite, Oxfordshire, England, February 2004 - click for larger image
Red Kite, Aragon, Spain, May 2022 - click for larger image
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