These figures combined give a population of between 249 - 262 territorial pairs. of the 249 occupied territories identified, 221 pairs were known to have built nests, of which 201 pairs were known to have laid eggs. These figures are minimal and there is no doubt that other undiscovered pairs occured in both categories.

Taking into account the unknown number of pairs at unchecked territories gives a range of 221 - 234 nest-building and 201 - 214 egg laying pairs. This total includes several new pairs discovered through fieldwork carried out in conjunction with the tetrad survey, in areas previously unchecked. It is impossible to know how many of these new pairs may have also been present in previous years but it is certainly not many. The general paucity of new sites is reassuring and confirms the accuracy of our estimates in earlier years. The population is clearly still growing with an increase of 11.5 -18.2% in the number of breeding pairs since last years.

Although the breeding population continued to increased satisfactorily the number of young kites known to fledge in Wales was the lowest since 1997. Of the 221 egg-nests located, only 103 were known to produce chicks with a meagre minimum total of 141 young fledged. 90 nests are known to have failed completely. Of these, 20 nests failed on eggs; 5 blew down, 4 failed to hatch, 1 was disturbed by pond digging and 1 was robbed. Eleven pairs definitely lost young, including 1 chick eaten on the nest at approximately 4 weeks old.

Most of these chick losses and a large proportion of the 34 other nests that failed at or around hatching were thought to have been due to the incredibly wet and cold weather we had during most of May. The timing and cause of failure at 25 other nests was unrecorded. Mean brood size was much smaller than in recent years with 60 broods of one chick, 32 broods of two chicks and 3 broods of three chicks. Eight additional nests were known to have produced at least one young but the actual number of young fledged was not determined.

There were 38 pairs/nests for which the breeding status or final outcome were uncertain and these have obviously been excluded from the productivity figures. Most of these pairs however were thought to have not bred, or bred and failed earely.

To put the breeding productivity In Wales into some sort of perspective: if our breeding pairs had achieved the same success rate and productivity as the north Scotland kites the known nests would have produced nearly 500 young!

At least five breeding adults were found dead. One of these adults was a Spanish born, East Midlands- released female found dead on an empty nest near Llanidloes. This is the first proven nesting attempt by an introduced, continental origin, kite in Wales. Two adults found dead at the same nest near Sennybridge proved to have been poisoned with fenthion (the discontinued Warble Fly treatment), indicating illegal poisoning.

Some 107 chicks were ringed and all but two were also individually colour-ringed using engraved plastic "Darvics"- green with white letters being the 2000 colour code. In a seperate attempt to estimate the proportion of nests that we failed to find, we also sprayed the tips of the central two tail-feathers of most of these chicks bright orange.

A random survey, recording the proportion of marked to unmarked juveniles at the feeding stations during the winter, showed that approximately half of all chicks seen were colour-marked. This suggests that in reality some 200 young fledged during the year. Using the figure of 0.72 chicks per nesting attempt this would give a population of 278 breeding pairs. It is both pleasing and a relief that all three survey methods are in general agreement, allowing us to be reasonably confident in our estimate of the number of Red Kites present in Wales.

It can be seen from the table below that from 2000 onwards we have ceased to give an estimate of the number of unmated birds, and hence the total population estimates in spring and summer. With the number of kites increasing, these figures have become more and more difficult to assess correctly and there now seems no point in giving what amounts to little more than an informed guess.

Revised figures for the known Welsh kite population for the past 11 years are given in the table below.