Red Kite at Santa Pod Raceway! (1 Viewer)

[Stuarty]

Living in central Scotland, seeing a Red Kite is a rarity for me, in fact I've only ever seen them on two occasions, both times in Perthshire.

Anyway, I'm heavily involved in the modified car scene, and attended Fast Show, the season opener, at Santa Pod yesterday. I was stunned to see a Kite soaring over the campsite, and indeed over the drag strip. I was even more stunned to see it swoop down within feet of people and snap up scraps of food!

I looked around, expecting to see the bird's handler, but no, it was indeed a wild bird which has obviously become very accustomed to its busy surrounding. Later on it soared over my car's stand, literally 20 feet above me, what a sight! :t:

 

[_pauls]

Living in central Scotland, seeing a Red Kite is a rarity for me, in fact I've only ever seen them on two occasions, both times in Perthshire.

Anyway, I'm heavily involved in the modified car scene, and attended Fast Show, the season opener, at Santa Pod yesterday. I was stunned to see a Kite soaring over the campsite, and indeed over the drag strip. I was even more stunned to see it swoop down within feet of people and snap up scraps of food!

I looked around, expecting to see the bird's handler, but no, it was indeed a wild bird which has obviously become very accustomed to its busy surrounding. Later on it soared over my car's stand, literally 20 feet above me, what a sight! :t:

Great stuff - I love seeing Red Kites and used to drive quite close to the reintroduction site at Harewood House near Leeds and would see 1-5 birds daily for much of the year.

Interesting to hear of it swooping down and taking scraps of food in close proximity to people - this was typical behaviour of kites in the cities before persecution wiped them out.