As high as a red kite

Having nearly died out as recently as 40 years ago, the red kite has made a remarkable comeback thanks to a concerted conservation effort, but is it about to become a victim of its own success, asks Eleanor Doughty

- Eleanor Doughty

DURING the past 34 years, a distinctive silhouette has increasingly begun to appear in the skies above the UK, hovering high above the ground, its forked tail glinting in the sun. The red kite. Once extinct in England, this large bird of prey is now in the ascendant.

As one Welsh landowner says: 'Welcome to red-kite country. They are everywhere!' Theirs is a genuine modern conservation success story. During the Middle Ages, kites were often seen they were mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales and later by William Shakespeare, who, in The Winter's Tale, advises: 'When the kite builds, look to your lesser linen,' as it has a habit of stealing from washing lines. But, as the 20th century dawned, there was only a handful of birds left in central Wales. This, explains Ian Evans, senior conservation adviser for Natural England, was a travesty, given that remains of red kites have turned up in Iron Age excavations.