Return of the Red Kite

There have been several local sightings of Red Kite in the past few weeks and I finally managed some decent views today.

Red Kite mobbed by Raven

The Red Kite was lost as a breeding bird in Derbyshire in the middle of the 19th Century prior to then it was postulated that the kite's Derbyshire headquarters were 'in the wooded portions of the Peak, the common Buzzard taking its place in the lower parts of the county' according to FB Whitlock who published the first Birds of Derbyshire in 1893.
The loss of the Red Kite in Derbyshire was mirrored throughout England with the only population in the UK restricted to a small area in central Wales. I can still vividly recall my first sighting of a Red Kite at the age of 19 having hitch hiked from Leeds to Wales in April 1976, I still have my notebook in which I recorded the event!

My notebook entry for April 1976 - not a great drawing but at least I used a red pen!

In 1989 the RSPB and Natural Englands predecessor instigated a reintroduction programme. Starting in the Chilterns and followed by Rockingham Forest in the East Midlands and then Harewood Estate in Yorkshire. The programme has been a great success and the number of sightings in Derbyshire has increased dramatically since the turn of the Century with over 200 records in 2017 compared with just six records in the period 1900 - 1977. 
Finally a pair bred successfully in Derbyshire in 2018 raising one youngster at Kedleston Hall and it can only be a matter of time before they are breeding again in Whitlock's 'wooded portions of the Peak'.