Tests carried out by the Police Service of Northern Ireland suggest the dead bird may have been killed deliberately. Both its wing tags and an identifying leg ring had been removed before the bird was recovered." Continued..

Thats the news that greeted me when I fired up the computer this morning
20/08/08
I've been spending a great deal of time sorting out a new width system for the site and most pages now allow anything from 780 to 1004 pixels wide so should now look better on most screens.
Rain, some of it torrential, has been the order of the day for the past weeks and with it have come problems with hide space and the kites not being to fly for the earlier part of some afternoons. One day this week it was 5:20 in the afternoon before the weather relanted enough to allow the kites to feed. That was an exeptional day and the kites have managed to feed much nearer to 3pm on most days depite the extra weight on their wings.

Tony Cross turned up here late one night with a kite chick to rehabilitate. Nothing particulartly unususal in that until I saw the bird - a White red kite chick!

It had a cold and sore throat, and was painfully thin so lots of TLC has been required. It soon became apparent that there was to be a need to temper my exclamations (not always successfully) when fingers were being bitten..
The kite is now looking much fitter having got over its cold and the sore throat has also gone and the hand feeding is making great inroads. A photo will follow soon :)

18/07/08

Tony Cross has brought in a young kite for rehabilitation. This one can fly although not strongly enough to make it out there with its brethren Unlike the kites I had to hand feed this one will readily feed itself so no more pinched fingers!!

Of the earlier 3 adults and chicks, one adult was released back into the wild, while one other was found to have a spinal injury so was put to sleep, and the remaining bird failed wake up one morning - this one had been in an accident and although nothing was found to be broken, internal injuries took their toll. Of the chicks.. one was found to have arthritis in a wing so was not viable while its sibling continued to grow stronger each day and was finally reunited with its parents. Two out of five may not look very good, but given their original problems it was in fact a far better outcome than was expected at first.

17/07/08
Quick note of interest - Gigrin Red Kite Centre is on TV again..

..22nd July BBC2 9pm 'Jimmies Farm'.

26/06/08
Well, where should I begin..

On the 9th February, together with 3 photographers, I was in the tower hide attempting to add to my film footage of red kites. One of my companions alerted me 'something going on on the hill'. I duly turned the video camera in the direction pointed out and to my horror saw 2 sheep being strung up to a tree and butchered by 3 men.

The video was used as evidence and the court case has now found the 3 guilty and each sentenced to costs and 240 hours of work in the community..
In days of old this was a hanging offence!!

Red Kites for Ireland..
The last 2 weeks have seen a total of 53 red kite chicks brought to Gigrin by members of the Welsh Kite Trust and the Golden Eagle Trust Ltd of Ireland. Both parties had to scale trees to find nests with more than one chick, take the smaller one from the nest, and transport it back here to one of the rehabilitation aviaries which had been transformed into a red kite chick nursery..>>

28 red kite chicks came in during the first week and left on the Friday for Ireland. The following week a further 25 much bigger chicks ( a week older) came in.
A film company, working on behalf of the RSPB, followed the first week right from the taking of chicks from nests to being brought back to the rehabilitation centre, being fed, and their subsequent transportation to Ireland. Madelaine Westwood of Nutshell Productions organised the rights from the RSPB for us the use of all that was taken here on the farm so that will provide an insight to the unseen work of the parties and will run in the Red Kite Interpretative Centre later this year.

I intend to add a full page of information on this exciting project, including images and film, as soon as I'm able.

Rehabilitation
At present I have 3 red kites in for rehabilitation but would far rather they were not here but in the bird hospital in Telford as I've not got the facilities that these birds require.

The first kite was found near to the kite feeding hides in a poor state having been 'downed' by heavy rain. The second kite was found on the main road some 30 miles from here and I collected it from a lorry driver who had stopped to pick it up as it flapped along the road.

Both these kites legs are as yet unable to hold their weight.

The third bird is extremely underweight and malnourished. It was brought in yesterday. This one is at least feeding itself now while the other pair take in turns to take pieces out of me as I hand feed them..

I hope to have more pages on both this and the kites for Ireland soon.

11/06/08

Kite numbers at the feeding station are high for the time of year but the news from the nesting sites is not good - The wet spring has left numbers of nests without a single chick.

Its been a while since I have added any news and I'm still unable to say much, but the picture on the right may be a bit of a hint..

So..With any luck I'll have some previously unseen footage and images to add to the site by the weekend.

19/05/08
So many kites are now feeding we have had to increase the food again.

I had dropped the amount of meat we fed for a month or so as numbers lessened for nesting but that has been turned on its head these past weeks.

Another bank holiday is not far away so I've been trying to update the information in the hides and on the boards.

The "North Warwickshire DA (caravan & camping club)" will be holding their annual Rally on the farm from Friday so thats another field to be cut this week - the kite feeding area has already had its first clipping. A bit like the lawn - there's no letting up now until the autumn!!

04/05/08
The holiday weekend was forecast to be a washout but we've seen sunshine each day with only the briefest of showers in the evening.

The white kite has been missing from the feeding session the past few weeks but this evening (7pm) is sitting high in the oak tree that overlooks the field (I missed to take a photograph due to other duties pressing on my time).

This kite is reported to be nesting just a few short miles from here and if it manages to bring up a chick I believe it will be first ever recorded to do so! Time will tell.

30/04/08
I still don't know quite what happened last Friday to make the kites hold back so long but today they wasted no time in coming in as soon as the first shovel of meat went out. Being nesting time the numbers are probably at their lowest for the year but are still a spectacular sight as they dive in for food.

I'm moved to make some changes to the site again and to that end I've set up a small poll in the hope that you'll place your preference on the width of pages this site uses.

27/04/08
Just 2 days later and the kites were very late coming in in any numbers today. It was around 4:15 that they reached the norm and I've no idea why that occurred today. Tomorrow will be interesting! I've added the ability to add a Comment at the bottom of most pages on the site tonight so that's a little more interactivity than has been the case up to now.

25/04/08
Kite numbers are still around the 100-200 and are coming in very quickly for the food.
On a different note..A shock has came in the cost of grass fertiliser prices this year.. last year 14 tonnes were purchased at a cost of £140/tonne but the price has now more than doubled to a staggering £375/tonne and is still rising. This is a major problem as animals need grass to eat and stocking rates cannot be lowered in the short term. In addition animal feed has now jumped from £120/tonne to £200+ so pressure is mounting on all sides..
I''m hoping to add a little interactivity on the site this coming week. A poll on the width of this sites pages is to be next on line - but, my ISP made some changes to the server that have disabled the php forms on the site today so it may be a little longer before I can implement my wishes..

11/04/08
First Minister Rhodri Morgan has paid a visit to the Red Kite Feeding Centre at Gigrin Farm in Mid Wales to see how we are preparing for the forthcoming season.

Rhodri Morgan said:  “Wales has a great range of quality visitor attractions and a wide variety of options for days out and the Easter break presents a great opportunity for people to get out and about and discover what Wales has to offer.

“Wales has an amazing diversity of wildlife and the sight of so many red kites circling above the farm and then swooping from the skies for their daily feed was certainly impressive and a truly unique experience."