11 November 2013

The Red Kite

Whilst we were still in England on holiday we decided to go to Wales, to the Red Kite feeding station at Gigrin Farm where these beautiful birds are fed once a day.
 
It was a fantastic day out, watching these beautiful birds so if you are ever in the area make sure you go to this feeding station as it is well worth the trip. You certainly won't regret it if you are a keen bird watcher!

Red Kite


Red Kite

Red Kite


Despite being large birds, Red Kites are neither particulary strong, nor aggresive. When hunting live prey, a low gliding flight is employed so that the Kite can search for small movements on the ground, and then it quickly grasps the creature in its talons.


Red Kite
Red Kite


Red Kite

It is however, a predator in that it takes a wide variety of live prey ranging from earthworms to small mammals, amphibians and birds.

Red Kites

Red Kite

Red KIte

Common Buzzard

Red Kite ,Common Buzzard and Ravens
A Kite has excellent eye sight and they use this when over flying the countryside in search of food.

An especially good hunting ground for the Red Kite, and a host of other predators, is the land between the valley bottom and lower slopes, and open hill tops. Here there is often bracken, gorse and heather sheltering great numbers of rabbits, voles, moles, and field mice.

Red Kite

Common Buzzard

Red Kite

Red Kite


Red Kite
Spectacular day overall, very memorable.

We hope you enjoyed these photos, so until our next outing... Goodbye for now!

Garden Feeders

Recently, we went on a family holiday to a rural part of England so for this particular post we have a few photographs of some of the birds that came in to the garden to make the most of the feeders set out specifically for them.
 
With winter setting in, it is a great help for the birds to get some food on a regular occurence. It is also a good chance for us to see these little birds a lot closer than we normally would whilst we are out bird watching with our scopes, etc.

Here are just a few of the photos that we managed to take:


Robin
Blue Tit
Chaffinch

Nuthatch


Coal Tit and Blue Tit


Great Spotted Woodpecker

Coal Tit

Dunnock

Coal Tit

Nuthatch


Blue Tit
Robin
 
We hope that you enjoyed these 'up close' photos of these lovely birds!