In 1998 over 70 breeding pairs of red kites fledged the impressive total of 143 young, 21 of which were taken for release in the Midlands. There are now several communal roosts in the Chilterns and the majority of the wing-tagged 1998 young have been recorded at one or other of the roosts during the winter.

This year it is possible that the magic figure of 100 breeding pairs could be reached, although, as the population increases, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the monitoring group to locate all the new pairs.

In the last update, the potential problem of secondary poisoning by rodenticides was highlighted. In some areas, rats have become resistant to the less toxic rodenticide poisons and the use of the more toxic products is increasing. There have been two recent cases involving Chilterns kites where rodenticides were almost certainly to blame. In the most recent case, one of the populations most successful breeding females was found in very poor condition and was taken for treatment to the Institute of Zoology where it unfortunately died. An x-ray, taken as part of the post-mortem, revealed the presence of an intact egg inside the kite. It is just possible that the egg is still viable, and, at the time of writing, it is sitting in an incubator at the Institute. We await further developments with considerable interest.

A 1997 fledged kite, from an isolated breeding pair in Suffolk was reported from the Netherlands during the 1998/99 winter, in one of the longest movements so far recorded. This is the sibling , which turned up at a feeding site near Tregaron in January 1998. The third youngster from this nest has been seen regularly in the Chilterns and is now thought to be paired up with a bird from the local population. Clearly these young birds have inherited the tendency for long distance movements that allowed their parents to become established at a site well away from other kite areas. Unfortunately, these movements make it much less likely that a new population will become established in Suffolk and, in 1998, we could find no trace of the original breeding pair despite the odd sighting of a single kite in the breeding area.

The Suffolk birds do not have a monopoly on long distance dispersal as we have recently received a report of a bird, almost certainly from the Chilterns population, in France. There will be more details of this in the next report if the sighting can be confirmed.

2000: This population of red kites continues to increase although there is some evidence that the rate of increase has slowed. A total of 86 territorial pairs were located and 75 breeding pairs reared 155 young, a ratio of 2.1 young per pair. A total of 89 chicks were wing-tagged using yellow tags on the left wing and black on the right wing.

It is becoming ever more difficult for the Southern England Kite Group to locate all breeding pairs and the true population will be somewhat higher than the figures suggest. Work will be carried out during the winter to assess the proportion of young kites in the population that are wing-tagged and this will allow an estimate for the 1999 breeding population to be calculated.

Eight dead kites have been found in England during the last two years with residues of rodenticide in their liver. Kites are at high risk from secondary poisoning by rodenticides as they scavenge on dead rats, many of which will have been poisoned, and this problem may be a factor in slowing the rate of population expansion in southern England. We have produced a factsheet for farmers and landowners in kite areas to highlight this problem and encourage those using rodenticides to search for rats that die out in the open, and burn or bury carcasses so that they are not available to kites.
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