Ann and Peter
Member
We recently spent a few days in mid Wales staying in Eglwysfach and visiting all of our favourite places.
On Thursday the 30th June we drove to Nant yr Arian where we could always see red kites even before the centre starting feeding them at the same time every afternoon.Looking out over the valley seeing buzzards and kites in the distance we saw, much to our surprise a very pale kite, almost white, riding the thermals. Talking later to a young man who was shortly going to take up a job at the newly built RSPB 'virtual hide', this bird was known about at Gigrin Farm. It is a Leucistic kite that hatched in 2003 30 miles NW of Gigrin. Leucistic tendencies is caused by lack of melanin pigment in the skin and is a relatively rare genetic trait. We felt privileged to have seen this rare bird.
On the holiday we saw our first red kite over the fields by the lane leading from Eglwysfach to the Ynyshir reserve, being mobbed by crows as usual. The pied flycatchers had mostly fledged but we did see some females and immatures; we also saw numbers of tree creepers, and much to our delight saw a little egret chick flapping its wings at the top of a tree in the heronry, a pair having bred on the reserve. The rare white kite and the little egret were the most memorable sightings of our short break.
More information about the white kite can be found on theGigrin Farm website Gigrin.co.uk
On Thursday the 30th June we drove to Nant yr Arian where we could always see red kites even before the centre starting feeding them at the same time every afternoon.Looking out over the valley seeing buzzards and kites in the distance we saw, much to our surprise a very pale kite, almost white, riding the thermals. Talking later to a young man who was shortly going to take up a job at the newly built RSPB 'virtual hide', this bird was known about at Gigrin Farm. It is a Leucistic kite that hatched in 2003 30 miles NW of Gigrin. Leucistic tendencies is caused by lack of melanin pigment in the skin and is a relatively rare genetic trait. We felt privileged to have seen this rare bird.
On the holiday we saw our first red kite over the fields by the lane leading from Eglwysfach to the Ynyshir reserve, being mobbed by crows as usual. The pied flycatchers had mostly fledged but we did see some females and immatures; we also saw numbers of tree creepers, and much to our delight saw a little egret chick flapping its wings at the top of a tree in the heronry, a pair having bred on the reserve. The rare white kite and the little egret were the most memorable sightings of our short break.
More information about the white kite can be found on theGigrin Farm website Gigrin.co.uk
