News: Spring/Summer 2006

After an absence of hundreds of years, red kites are back over the skies of London!

Red kites were familiar scavengers in London during medieval times but the bird was driven by persecution to the remotest areas of Mid-Wales by the mid-nineteenth century. It seemed for a time that they would become extinct, but the Welsh birds hung on and began to increase steadily in the latter part of the 20th century. Reintroduction schemes have given them a helping hand in parts of England and Scotland: the first of these being based in the Chilterns just north of London.

Now a juvenile bird has been spotted in a Hackney garden in East London - probably originating from the successful Chiltern reintroduction. Juvenile birds often disperse large distances from their birthplace and often gather in large winter roosts. Hopefully this garden sighting might become even more commonplace in London over the next few decades.

BBC. 2006. Red kite returns to London skies. Viewed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4600334.stm on January 16th 2006.