The 'White' Red Kite (1 Viewer)

[aberbirder]

Hi, I was at Nant-yr-arian the other day and saw a Leucistic Red Kite, I have seen it a couple of times at this site. It was with over 100 other Kites getting fed and was obviously very easy to pick out from the flock. It did tend to hang around the outside of the flock, I dont think it is fully accepted by the other birds. I heard roughly one in every 100 Red Kites are Leucistic.

Sarah

 

[shortwing]

i used to see the white kite at nant yr arian and around ponterwyd alot while hunting around that area....havent seen it for a while now but i dont hunt that area as often as i used to... too many bloody mountain bikers these days...

 

[Bananafishbones]

The Kites wont usualy feed at the station 2 days running, so if anyone missed the white kite it may have been there the day before. I saw it 3 days in the week, and I have to say it gave as good as it got, but then did retreat for periods and sat in the surrounding trees.

Did any one see the kite with white flight feathers I think they are called (or fingers as the youngest lad says), that is also stricking when you see it.

I was at Gigrin for a week in mid Feb and as others have said Chris Powell was most informative.

We had upto 200 feeding in a day, and the feeding pattern is also incredible. The crows get first dibs on the food, then the senior kites take charge until around 3.30pm At this point it goes quiet for a while, this is when the members of the public seem to drift off and then miss the best bit, because about 4.00pm the less dominant and juvenile Kites come in to feed (and most of the Buzzards also), this lasts until dusk.....
I had all the hides to myself most evenings.

The Buzzards then get harrased for the duratiuon of the second sitting but do sit it out to the end as most of the Buzzards are very local to the farm and mop up the last morsals (generally the food closest to the hides), caught the Buzzard sleeping after the food frenzy

Pure brilliance

Dave

 

[gowerboy]

I was led to believe that one of the pale kites is from Llandeusant, and moved up Gigrin a few years ago.....

 

[steadyeddie]

Thought I'd just put an update to this thread, one year on and the "White" Red Kite (bird 51) has still been a regular visitor at Gigrin farm this winter.

Shots during this winter.