Red Kite hunting
We’re having a walk around Farmoor Reservoir in Oxfordshire. It’s Oxfordshire’s largest body of open water. We have Anna the dog with us, so we’re not allowed to walk alongside the reservoir, but there is a nature trail of three or four miles which encircles the reservoir, so we choose that.
Being in Oxfordshire means we’re surrounded by Red Kites. It’s going to seem odd being back in the South West of England when we look to the skies and they are missing.
A Red Kite sails lazily overhead and I track it with my camera, wishing it would turn around. It’s heading down the slope towards a stand of old oak trees. I can barely see it, but notice when it turns, climbs steeply, and hurtles to the top of a tree and then does it again. Is that where it’s nesting? Is it hunting?
It comes flying back up the hill pursued by a Carrion Crow and I train my camera on it.
It’s calling and tussling with the pursuing crow.
They fly side by side and the Red Kite makes avoiding manoeuvres.
Eventually, it shakes off the crow and sails past, a male blackbird held firmly in its talons, off up the slope to where its nest must be. Look at the tiny legs and tail of the blackbird held beneath the huge raptor:
We’ve just witnessed a spectacular hunt, a pursuit, and a triumphant return.
Looking back over the sequence of photographs I can see the dead head of the Blackbird hanging limply underneath the Kite.
That’s nature.
More Red Kites
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