RogerBW's Blog

Red Kites perching 28 August 2014

I was watching some magpies squabbling, in a tree half-way down the road, when something amazing happened. Large image follows: cc-by-sa on everything.

A red kite wriggled its way out of the sky to land at the top of the tree, displacing the magpie that had briefly won the argument.

In fact, a second kite was already in the tree, but lower and not silhouetted against the sky.

I've been watching the kites with great pleasure since I moved here, and I've occasionally seen them go behind a tree and not appear again, but this was the first time I've ever spotted one perched.

The magpies seemed to know their place; they could probably have mobbed the kites if they'd worked together, but they showed no sign of doing so. The kites stayed there for a few minutes, long enough for me to get the good camera, but moved away as soon as the wind gusted. Here they are at full original resolution in case you don't feel like loading the whole image:

Detail

(Shot with Pentax K10D).

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