News

Red kites soar to highest level for 150 years

Red kites have reached a 150 year high in Scotland, after a hugely successful twenty year reintroduction programme by RSPB Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage around the country.  Since 1989, the graceful bird of prey has been reintroduced in four parts of Scotland, with a minimum of 149 Scottish pairs fledging 234 young in 2009.
 
Red kites are beautiful, sociable raptors with six foot wing spans and distinctive forked tails, and are mainly scavengers.  Once common all over the British Isles, widespread killing of the birds in Victorian times led to less than 50 pairs surviving in mid-Wales by 1989, when the bird was reintroduced to the Black Isle North of Inverness, and the Chilterns in Southern England.  Since then, further Scottish releases have taken place in Central Scotland, near Doune, in Dumfries and Galloway near Loch Ken, and on the outskirts of Aberdeen.
 
These strategic releases are now bearing fruit, with increasing intermingling of the different populations around the country.  Most areas below 1500 feet are probably suitable for red kites in Scotland, and so it's hoped that one day almost everyone will have some of these marvellous birds near them.
 
Duncan Orr Ewing, Head of species and land management with RSPB Scotland said:
"Over 20 years, red kites have been brought back from extinction in Scotland to almost 150 pairs, which is almost certainly the highest number for 150 years.  We hope that the population has now reached a critical mass - amazing visitors and helping local economies at the same time.  We'd also like to thanks the many landowners and farmers who support this vital conservation work by hosting red kites on their land.  These birds should be quite common in our countryside, and over the last twenty years the ground work has been laid for that to happen again in the next twenty."