YRK Newsletter (21)
Newsletter – Issue (21)
Sightings of Red Kites continue to be reported from an increasingly wide area, showing that the birds are continuing to explore new locations. However, there has still been no confirmation of breeding pairs to the south of Leeds. Issue 20 reported on the increase in sightings of kites in the North Nottinghamshire, North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire localities, they having become a regular sight as far north as the Doncaster area. Such reports (including two breeding records which were not quite in Yorkshire) have continued in the ensuing period and it will surely not be long before kites become a regular and widespread feature in the landscape throughout the county – particularly when this northerly progression reaches areas already populated by birds originating from the Yorkshire release site at Harewood. It is likely that these are predominantly kites which have spread northwards from the well-established Midlands population, arising from birds released in Northamptonshire in the mid-1990s. Such traffic of Midlands birds northwards is something we’ve been aware of, on a small scale, for a number of years, the occasional tagged Midlands bird having joined the Yorkshire breeding population in the past.
