The birds rarely land, just grab a piece of meat in passing. By the now, the number of kites is increasing, and more and more are coming closer. The tractor moves to another part of the feeding field, and more meat is thrown out. Almost immediately, one or two kites swoop in for a closer look, maybe even pick up a piece or two.
#Red kite feeding sites in wales driver
When everybody is settled in the hides, a tractor appears, stops in front of the hide, the driver gets out and starts shovelling lumps of meat onto the ground. It looks impressive then, and you can hear their long drawn-out whistling calls. Kites begin gathering over the site an hour or so before feeding time. But those that are still hungry, know where to find supper. At Gigrin food is put out in the afternoon, so any bird that has fed well doesn’t need to come here for more. Kites start looking for food when they wake up hungry in the morning. So young kites in particular have difficulty finding enough food, therefore survival rates were low. There aren’t many carcasses left on the land these days – farm hygiene and bio-security mean that such things are cleared away, buried, etc.
They are not strong enough to open a carcass of any size, and have to wait for a raven, crow or buzzard to do that before they can feed. Kites are basically scavengers, large but lightweight birds that float on air currents looking for scraps to eat – though they can kill small prey if they have to. But why feed kites? Can’t they find their own food? It is surrounded by mostly livestock farming – often the only viable farming in this cool wet climate, but is close to the large reservoirs of the Elan Valley (supplying water to cities such as Birmingham), forestry plantations and open hill country. The feeding station is located near Rhayader, in central Wales. There were six red kites regularly using the area at the start, but by 2015 six hundred wasn’t an unusual number. The late Mr Powell started feeding the kites on his farm in the 1980s, and the farm became an official feeding station open to the public in 1992/93. I thought the dozens of birds floating over the rubbish tip at Reinosa in northern Spain was pretty impressive when I saw it in 1989, but that pales by comparison. Red Kite can be seen across most of Europe – distribution map here – usually in small numbers, up to half a dozen, but occasionally dozens of them together at food resources like rubbish tips. And you get so much closer to them here because of the hides/blinds. Gigrin Farm in mid-Wales probably has the biggest gathering of red kites anywhere. One of the most fantastic spectacles anywhere is a huge gathering of birds – especially birds of prey.
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