Milvus milvus ... Red Kite

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Classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Falconiformes or Accipitriformes
Family: Accipitridae
Subfamily: Milvinae
Genus: Milvus
Species: M. milvus
Binomial name Milvus milvus

The Red Kite Milvus milvus is a medium-large bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as eagles, buzzards, and harriers. The species is currently endemic to the Western Palearctic region in Europe and northwest Africa. It is resident in the milder parts of its range in western Europe and northwest Africa, but birds from northeastern and central Europe winter further south and west, reaching south to Turkey. Vagrants have reached north to Finland and south to Israel, Libya and Gambia.

Red Kites are between 24 to 26 inches long with a 69–70 inch wingspan; males can weigh between 28 to 42 ounces, and females 35 to 46 ounces. It is an elegant bird, soaring on long wings held at a dihedral, and long forked tail, twisting as it changes direction. The body, upper tail and wing coverts are rufous. The white primary flight feathers contrast with the black wing tips and dark secondaries. Apart from the weight difference, the sexes are similar, but juveniles have a buff breast and belly. Its call is a thin piping sound, similar to but less mewling than the Common Buzzard.

Adults differ from juveniles in a number of characteristics:
- Adults are overall more deeply rufous, compared with the more washed out colour of juveniles;
- Adults have black breast-streaks whereas on juveniles these are pale;
- Juveniles have a less deeply forked tail, with a dark sub-terminal band;
- Juveniles have pale tips to all of the greater-coverts (secondary and primary) on both the upper- and under-wings, forming a long narrow pale line;
- Adults have pale fringes to upper wing secondary-coverts only.

The Red Kite's diet consists mainly of small mammals such as mice, voles, shrews, young hares and rabbits. It feeds on a wide variety of carrion including sheep carcasses and dead game birds. Live birds are also taken and occasionally reptiles and amphibians. Earthworms form an important part of the diet, especially in spring. As scavengers, red kites are particularly susceptible to poisoning. Illegal poison baits set for foxes or crows are indiscriminate and kill protected birds and other animals.

Adult red kites are sedentary birds, and occupy their breeding home range all year in the United Kingdom. Each nesting territory can contain up to five nest sites. Both male and female birds build the nest on a main fork or a limb high in a tree, - often over 40 feet up and beyond (to 60 feet!) above the ground. The nest is made of twigs and lined with grass or other vegetation and sheep’s wool. They inhabit broadleaf woodlands, valleys and wetland edges, to 250 feet or so ..... They are endemic to the western Palearctic, with the European population of 19,000-25,000 pairs encompassing 95% of its global breeding range. It breeds from Spain and Portugal east into central Europe and Ukraine, north to southern Sweden, Latvia and the UK, and south to southern Italy. There is a population in northern Morocco. Northern birds move south in winter, mostly staying in the west of the breeding range, but also to eastern Turkey, northern Tunisia and Algeria. The three largest populations (in Germany, France and Spain, which together hold more than 75% of the global population) declined between 1990 and 2000, and overall the species declined by almost 20% over the ten years. The main threats to Red Kites are poisoning, through illegal direct poisoning and indirect poisoning from pesticides, particularly in the wintering ranges in France and Spain, and changes in agricultural practices causing a reduction in food resources. Other threats include electrocution, hunting and trapping, deforestation, egg-collection (on a local scale). According to a report by the Welsh Kite Trust, the UK is the only country in which the Red Kite population is increasing. In 1999 the Red Kite was named 'Bird of the Century' by the British Trust for Ornithology. It has been unofficially adopted as the national bird of Wales. As of July 2011, non-breeding birds are regularly seen in all parts of Britain, and the number of breeding pairs is too large for the RSPB to continue to survey them on an annual basis.