Belated news for 13 July 12
A dead Red Kite found on tideline of Redcar Beach by member of public.
Fortunately that person realised the significance of this wing-tagged corpse, and happened to live next door to a birder.
Examination of the (long dead) corpse revealed an aerial and transmitter, BTO metal ring and wing tag on left wing pink 84 with green border. Theoretically it should have had a green wing tag with pink border on its right wing but this was missing.
Several websites have a wealth of info on Britain's Red Kites;
www.gigrin.co.uk/redkitetags-explained.html gives the colour for all the UK sites and years, and showed that this bird was a Northumberland/Durham bird hatched in 2006.
Website
www.friendsofredkites.org.uk gives the known history of every Red Kite tagged and released in the Gateshead area, and showed that this bird ''pink/green 84'' was hatched in the Chilterns in 2006, brought to Gateshead in that summer, was a male christened ''Shiver'' and adopted by Barmston Village Primary School.
For the next 3 years it was seen on numerous occasions in North Durham - South Northumberland, then established a territory at Causey Gill, near Beamish with red/purple T2, a 2007 female Red Kite from mid-Scotland. The pair stayed together, rearing 1 young in 2010, 3 in 2011 and 1 in 2012.
Pink/green 84 was still at the nest site in mid-June when the 1 chick was wing-tagged, so why it came to be dead on Redcar Beach less than a month later will forever be a mystery.
The remains were too decomposed to make a study skin, but the skull has gone to a collection in Tyneside and the long wing and tail feathers will be used as educational material. The transmitter is said to be of no use after about 3 years.