To discover the secrets of how red kites raise their chicks, I build a scaffold tower 16 metres high to study a nest high in the tree canopy. The amount of rubbish I found there was heart-breaking.
Red Kites are one of Britain's most distinctive birds of prey. With iconic forked tails, and long, angled wings, they’re now a common sight in our skies and have inspired many of my paintings. But it hasn’t always been this way. In the 1870s these birds were extinct in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and until an ambitious reintroduction programme in the 1990s, were absent from Yorkshire. So, when I found a well-established nest in a tree canopy near me, I applied for a Schedule 1 license to film their nesting behaviour.
Filming the nest
Red kites nest in March, so it was important I secured my hide and cameras in winter and to further minimise disturbance, I build a scaffold tower 16m high to secure my cameras close to the nest then take this down and move it 20 metres away where it will later, after the chicks have hatched and are old enough for the parents to leave the nest for short spells, house my hide. The first thing that strikes me when I reach the nest is how much rubbish there is on the nest. Red kites build on previous year's nests, creating them from base of sticks and twigs, lined with grass and wool. But this pair have also used rubbish. I find baler twine, plastic, even a face mask.
Courtship
Until it's time to put up my hide, I watch the red kite pair reaffirm their bonds through spectacular aerial displays. In the meantime my remote cameras record the kites restoring their nest with new sticks and grasses and one of them even scrapes out a hollow for the coming eggs. In April the pair lay three eggs, at intervals of three days. Now the female begins to incubate, aided occasionally by the male whose main duties are to feed and protect her.
Rubbish in the nest
But this male is oblivious to the real dangers that threaten this new family: plastic. Not only can plastic affect their digestion, if swallowed, but worse both adults and chicks are easily entangled and drown or die of cold by plastic preventing rainwater from draining through. A real wake up call, to not drop litter. On May 7th, 35 days after it was laid, the first egg has a large crack in it and, a day later, a chick hatches, It's sad to see it amongst all the rubbish, but I can’t interfere and risk disturbing this new family. It's amazing to witness the tender moment that follows when the male lands on the nest and spots his chick for the first time
