When viewed from below, the underside of the kite’s wings is dark but with noticeable white bands towards the wing tips. Coupled with its enormous 5ft wingspan, approaching 6ft in larger birds, they are able to stay on the wing and glide for long periods, needing only occasional slow flapping of the wings to maintain flight.
The large flexible tail makes the red kite superbly agile. Note the differences in tail & wing shape. Left & Centre, red kite roosting and in flight. This difference can help you distinguish them from buzzards, whose tails are shorter and stockier, and are usually spread out like fans rather than triangles.
They have a large, long tail relative to their bodies, which is often deeply forked in flight, and when the tail is spread to help it manoeuvre in the air it is almost triangular in appearance with sharp edges. Like the smaller kestrel it is a brown / rusty red colour, especially in sunlight, and has a silver-grey head. The red kite is perhaps one of the easiest of our birds of prey to identify. And we’re waiting for the famous Argaty red kites to appear. I and four other visitors are at Lerrocks Farm near Doune. It’s about as unlikely a prelude to a spectacular wildlife display as you could imagine, but something quite wonderful is about to happen and there’s a very real sense of anticipation and excitement. I’m staring intently at it but every now and then I glance upwards, scanning the sky. Outside the hide, in an adjacent field, is a small pile of raw meat that our guide has dumped onto the ground from a bucket. As I look through an open hatch the sun is warm on my face. It’s a cold, bright winter’s day and I’m sitting in a wooden hide.
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