Kitchen Garden Forum

On Sunday morning I was watching two Red Kites over my plot and as usual the local Crows always send out one Crow to ward them off their territory. The Crow suddenly flew directly at one of the Kites but he/she had forgotten the other Kite who promptly flew at the Crow with talons outstretched grabbed the Crow pecked its head and simply dropped it and it plummeted to earth stone dead! It was all over in a flash! They then moved off and onto another Crow territory and in came another Crow they were then out of my sight range so how the other Crow fared I know not. A very good example of nature at work.
JB.

It is amazing how quickly these birds of pray can kill in the air. I was standing in the school playground a few years ago when I was a classroom assistant and a bird just plummeted from the sky stone dead! It was buried with full honours in the school garden of course.

The Crow versus Red Kite balance is quite interesting to watch. We now regularly see Red Kites around our area and the Crows seem to be their biggest enemy. When there are two crows together they normally seem able to harrass and finally chase the Red Kites off, but when the situation is reversed we find that a single crow will not seem too keen to challenge a red kite. They have obviously learned the lesson that there is safety in numbers.

Hi Primrose,
For most of today and yesterday there have been six Red Kites wheeling overhead and no crows. The crows obviously read your posting!
I think that it must be the time when the adult Kites chase their offspring out of the district as do Buzzards. I also have four young Buzzards overhead and in my trees screaming for food and the adults are simply ignoring them. This will go on for some time yet until they get really hungry then they will go and find some food and then the screaming stops.
Six Kites overhead is the most I have ever had at one time here. The numbers are now increasing quite dramatically.
JB.

This increase in Red Kites seems to be quite dramatic in various parts of the country. Two years ago we would point out to each other quite excitedly if we happened to see one flying overhead. Now they're spotted on an almost daily basis so obviously breeding conditions have been favourable. But we've also noticed that a pair of crows who have bred youngsters this Spring now seem to be visiting our garden more and living "closer to the ground" than previously and I'm wondering whether this perhaps is a result of the more frequent appearance of the red kites which fly overhead and often swoop down quite low. The other more regularly sighted bird around here is the green parakeet although we hear them more often that we see them because they tend to fly much higher than other birds. Only once have I seen one actually visit our garden & eat from a peanut cage a couple of years ago when I naively rang our local police station to ask if anybody had reported the loss of a pet green parrot ! We have a large woodland area not too far from where we live and flocks of them can often be seen and heard in the treetops there.