(By Email)

Hello there,

Thanks for providing an excellent site (Web site) with information for those of us having an interest in wild birds but with little knowledge of hawks. The only omission being the impact of the overpopulation of Red Kites and the effect on other types of hawks and small wild bird populations, especially the great numbers of Kites arriving at Gilgrin {sic} Farm for what I would consider to be a circus like spectacle aimed at the general public with little thought given to the effect on the local wild life at Gilgrin {sic}, I'm sure the small wild birds and animals must be scared stiff and stressed out with such an unnatural event taking place, these small creaturs will not differentiate between a Sparrow Hawk and the Red Kite which I believe is unlikely to kill them.

I should like to know if research has been undertaken to establish the safe Kite population level in say a ten square mile rural area with comparisons taken of the number and types of small birds in areas where Kites and Hawks abound against those where the Hawk is rare.

With my very kind regards.

Keith Thomas



Tony Replies
---The whole issue of birds of prey and their effect on wildlife seems to be under debate by almost everyone at present and quite frankly along with some sensible discussion and reasoned debate there seems to be a certain amount of hot air floating around!!. With the distinct possibility that I'm going to alienate everyone all at the same time here are my own views.

Many people already blame the Sparrowhawk and Buzzard, and some are also starting to blame the Kite, for our declining small bird populations. Birds of prey are so named because they prey on live animals. This is an undeniable fact which no-one is disputing. Sparrowhawks eat small birds - that is what evolution has designed them to do. They have been doing so for millions of years - equally small birds have been trying to evade Sparrowhawks and overproducing young to allow for the inevitable losses for the same length of time. How is it then that these birds of prey have only just started having an effect?

The real issue is whether the number of small birds killed by Sparrowhawks, Goshawks or Peregrines (or Merlins, Hobbys and Red Kites for that matter) has actually caused the current decline. Anyone who has been to Turkey or Spain will have seen that it is possible to have far greater numbers of birds of prey than we have here and still have large and healthy populations of small birds too (indeed conventional predator/prey theory would necessitate having both). The difference in these countries is that their present farming systems are far less intensive and a much smaller proportion of the land is "improved".

There is little doubt among professional ornithologists that the current declines in small farmland bird, wading bird and some game-bird populations is brought about mainly or entirely by modern farming practice. I am in no way putting the blame on individual farmers. Post war Government policy encouraged them to intensify their production, by giving advise and financial incentive to that end; it is the system itself which is at fault. It may be true that in certain cases raptor numbers may not exactly be helping the fortunes of some species maintaining a tenuous toehold on certain areas, but they are plainly not the root cause of the decline.

In the particular case of the Red Kite few could claim that they have a detrimental effect on small bird populations anywhere. They feed primarily on earthworms and by scavenging. They do take live prey as well, mainly during the breeding season, and birds form a proportion of this. Taking Wales as a whole the number of birds killed by kites is totally inconsequential compared to those taken by cats, killed by cars or flying into windows - a mere drop in the ocean. Even if the Red Kite population were to increase 100 fold it would still be a negligible effect.

As far as the immediate environs of Gigrin Farm, or any of the other Kite feeding centres, is concerned the kites rarely hunt there - they do not have to! Gigrin, at its best, may attract up to one hundred Red Kites a day and numerous Buzzards and Ravens too but it also has good numbers of small birds. It is perhaps the only place in Radnorshire where you could hope to see a flock of Yellowhammers. The reason is that the owners also provide large amounts of seed for these small birds to eat. Natural food supplies, in the way of weed seeds and spilt grain, is simply not available in many places.

Most of Wales now comprises of field upon field of rye grass, heavily grazed by sheep or cut for silage several times a year. Often even the grass doesn't get to seed itself (how ironic then that farmers are legally obliged to control any thistles, docks and other pernicious weeds which could conceivably have provided seeds for Goldfinches or Linnets to eat!).

Gorse thickets and other areas of scrub are frequently seen as waste land by farmers and either cleared or burnt. Roadside verges, unimproved and containing a variety of native plants, have become a haven for small seed eating birds but even these are usually cut before much of the seed can ripen - and living your life on a roadside verge has its own particular dangers!.

Visitors to both Gigrin Farm and the kite feeding station at Talsarn (which also attracts up to 100 kites at times) will have seen that they both have free ranging chickens, ducks and bantams and very rarely do they loose even a single chick or duckling to any predator let alone a kite. Surely if predation was the huge problem it is supposed to be these would be the first to be taken.

I am unaware of any studies comparing the density of small birds in areas with large numbers of "hawks" and those with less but I would confidently predict that in some parts of South and East England where the numbers of raptors are low there are even fewer small birds than we get in Wales. On the whole I would guess that mid Wales (especially in the summer) is still relatively rich in small bird life, excepting that is, the ones that rely on arable farming such as Tree Sparrows, Yellowhammers and the like.

Interestingly Welsh hill tops still have reasonable numbers of Skylarks despite the "hawks" - perhaps this is because the landscape there, relative to other areas, has not changed that much. I am however aware of a situation where the population of birds on a small Welsh hill farm was studied before and after it was allowed to "go wild". Neil Taylor and Richard Williams at the Shared Earth Trust at Denmark Farm near Lampeter (Vol.2 No.5 of the journal Welsh Birds) detail the dramatic increase in the number and range of bird species following the restoration of 16.2 ha of previously intensively farmed grassland habitat.

Over a fourteen year period from 1985 the number of breeding bird species more than tripled and, per hectare, is now four times that of surrounding intensively farmed land. The number of breeding birds is now 10 times that on the surrounding farms. To quote just two examples, the number of breeding pairs of blackbirds increased from 2 in 1990 to 12 in 1999 and the number of pairs of Song Thrushes increased from 0 to 4 over the same period. All this on a farm with absolutely no control of either birds of prey, Carrion Crows or Magpies. We really do have to stop looking for scapegoats and start addressing the real problem before it is too late.