It was a hot, still day, towards the end of July 1975. My mother was driving me around mid-Wales, in search of one of Britain’s rarest and most sought-after birds – one that was still on the brink of extinction here.
As we turned a corner on a wooded hillside, I noticed a large raptor flying above us. Leaping out of the car, I lifted my binoculars to see a buzzard – a bird then so scarce that this was only the second I had ever seen.
And then, higher up in the clear blue sky, I noticed a second bird: slimmer, with longer, kinked wings and a distinctly forked tail. Surely it couldn’t be? But it was: my first ever red kite, floating in the firmament.
I didn’t see another red kite for almost 25 years. Since then, thanks to a successful reintroduction scheme, they have become so common that in some places people either ignore them, or worse still, resent their presence.
Here on the Somerset Levels, they are still only an occasional visitor, which I usually come across on fine days in spring, when they pass through on their way north. But whenever I head to the hillier east of the country, I always see them – still floating, rather than hanging, as other raptors seem to do. And every time, my heart leaps with the memory of that first encounter with this very special bird, almost half a century ago.
