It certainly felt that on occasion you were wading to the nest sites! During this period 4 breeding pairs of kites failed, mostly young inexperienced pairs, although one established pair moved nest site and subsequently failed. Of the 11 remaining pairs a total of 24-25 young were fledged (one nest in a clump of 150 foot Douglas Firs was unreachable and we suspect that it had 2 or 3 young). This is an increase on the 15 young fledged in 2001. Amongst the breeding birds, there were at least two pairs where one of the pair was a north Scotland bird, and one of these pairs fledged 3 young. There is now good interchange between these Scottish release sites with central Scotland being the main net beneficiary!
One pair of red kites bred in Perthshire, fledging two young, the first time for over 130 years that kites have bred in this county. On the negative side one young prospecting bird was found dead, hanging in an oak tree. This bird was sent for postmortem analysis and it was subsequently revealed that the bird had been shot with a rifle.
