Red
Kites in flight  |
Thirteen years ago Gigrin Farm, mid-Wales, was just
another upland sheep farm nestled high above sea level in the Wye and Elan valleys. But
today the farm is a popular visitors' spot thanks to one of the largest populations
of Red Kites in the UK. | Winter
wonderland at Gigrin Farm.
Photo courtesy of Gigrin Farm |
To
witness the spectacle of feeding time at Gigrin Farm, you'd never guess that the
Red Kite almost disappeared from Britain during the 19th century, when it was
hunted by farmers who considered it a pest.
By the early 20th century only
a handful of pairs remained, most in mid-Wales, and it's only a recent conservation
effort which has brought the Red Kite back from the brink of extinction. Red
Kite country  Red
Kites have now been reintroduced in England and Scotland and there are now 1,000
pairs in the UK, with over half of them in Wales, so it's only fitting that this
remains one of the best British locations to see the magnificent red kite.
Today
the farm is known as Official Kite Country after being recognised by the RSPB
in 1994, and is also home to a Welsh Kite Trust Rehabilitation Centre, which opened
in February 2003 and treated two injured kites within its first month. It's
also the first official Red Kite Feeding Centre in Wales, with daily feeding sessions
attracting up to 300 birds at once and getting through up to a quarter tonne of
beef a week. Another feeding station also caters for smaller birds, including
Yellow Hammers, Redstarts and three types of small finches, which find it hard
to find food during the winter due to more intensive farming which leaves less
grain behind for wildlife. There's also a 1.5mile nature trail takes visitors
through an area of wetland where wild ducks, Herons, Gadwall and various Wagtails
can often be seen. Red Kites in action  Red
Kites are one of the largest birds of prey in England and are notorious scavengers,
swooping out of the sky and snatching their prey off the ground.
With a
five foot wing span and soaring high above the land, the red kite is often confused
with the Buzzard, which has been known to show up for feeding time. They're
similar in size but the Red Kite has narrower wings and a distinctive forked tail,
not to mention a rich colour scheme of reds with yellow legs and a silvery white
head. They can also be spotted by listening out for their distinctive call
- a thin, piping, whistling sound. Although Gigrin Farm attracts anywhere
between 20 and 400 Red Kites per feeding, their numbers are generally higher in
winter as they fly elsewhere to nest during Spring. The
Raven
 The
largest type of crow, ravens are traditionally associated with the Tower of London,
where they congregate in their hundreds.
Like the Kite, the Raven has also
been persecuted and thought of as a pest, although at one time it was protected
for its uses in clearing dead animals from Britain's towns.
Today it is
protected by law and numbers are beginning to improve, with the highest breeding
density in Europe currently present in Central Wales.
Another similarity
to the Red Kite is its favourite food - carrion, the dead or rotting flesh of
any small animal - which is plentiful in winter when a large population of smaller
birds and animals die due to the cold.
Throughout the ages Ravens have
been regarded as a symbol of evil and death, which inspired Charles Dickens, who
kept two as pets, to include Grip the raven as a character in his famous novel,
Barnaby Rudge.
The Raven can be spotted in a number of ways, particularly
its dramatic aerial flight and unusual call, which was once regarded as a omen
of imminent death.
And although the Raven looks black from a distance,
close up it is possible to see flashes of purple, green and blue in its glossy
plumage. | 
