Studley Green Red Kites : 20th June 2015

Studley Green Red Kites : 20th June 2015

We started our holiday in the south of England with a visit to friend’s wedding anniversary party in Maidenhead. As we drove down the M40 near to Maidenhead the usual Buzzards gave way to the local specialty – Red Kites. Not only are they the dominant large bird in the sky in that area (Aston Rowant Nature Reserve was one of the release locations for the original re-introduction of these birds to mainland Britain) but they are also mind-bogglingly numerous. Knowing this did not stop our amazement at what we were shortly going to see.

We were a little early to check into our B & B in Maidenhead so we came off the motorway a junction early and decided to take the more scenic A40 route towards Maidenhead. As we drove along we became aware of an increase in the number of Red Kites in the sky so we stopped and turned around to park in the very large car park of a cafer cum hotel we had just passed so we could have a better look.

Well we could not have picked a better place to look because this car park was the attraction. At Chris’s Cafe and Motel so we were told by another birder who had parked up in the car park, the staff threw out unwanted bread and scraps at 1pm each day and this attracts the Red Kites. As we stood watching them there must have been a group of fifty to sixty birds wheeling around above our heads. What an amazing – and unexpected – sight this was; the birds circled above the car park and then groups of four or five would take it in turn to swoop down, just a matter 5 of six yards from us, to grab these rather modest morsels of food.

We stood and watched this spectacle until it died down (although it seemed to die down several times before they re-assembled again) and we were eventually able to pull ourselves away.

This must surely be one of the very best sites to see such large numbers of these birds and the cafe (which just closed when we arrived !) is now firmly on our “regular biding places to visit ” list. Needless to say this was a year tick with a vengeance.