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red kites eating stubble??? (1 Viewer)

chouette

Member
Hi all,

Yesterday I was on top of White Horse Hill at Uffington in Oxfordshire and saw a pair of red kites repeatedly flying low over an agricultural field of stubble, each of them scooping up bunches of dried vegetation form the ground and apparently eating it, or something in it, in flight.

What were they up to?

Cheers.
 
I think there may have been a bit of carrion in it, round here (bucks) they hang around the combines and other plant
waiting for whatever they have crunched up, rabbits etc... also I watched a flock of them following the plough then landing on each fresh strip presumably to eat worms.
 
Red Kites have been recorded taking a wide variety of invertebrate prey including many beetle species as well as caterpillars and the earthworms mentioned by Steve. More rarely they have been recorded taking grasshoppers too. Carrion feeders are great opportunists and will grab whatever is available.

Lee
 
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