Red Kite

This is the 1st time i have seen the Red Kite flying above my house for about 2 months, very difficult conditions to photograph him today though with the strong winds, and had to be quick with my shots of him as he was gone within 10 to 15 seconds each time he completed his circuit. I did notice him flying out at the front of the house about 40 minutes earlier but i was in the middle of taking one of the pups for a walk, so had to wait until i got home until i could grab camera.
Not completely happy with this shot, only because of the very light sky, the original image was bright white, i managed to darken it a little, but too much caused a blue halo around the bird and image almost looked super imposed. As for the detail on the kite itself, much better than i had managed a few months ago, so i am happy in that sense, even though its not a sharp image.

love it ..........your lucky ,I have to travel 30 odd miles down the M40 corridor to see them

About the same distance for me normally Cakey, Aston Rowant, Stokenchurch and Ibstone common are the places to be to see them in larger numbers, were just lucky to have a breeding pair living somewhere close to us, although no idea where they are nesting or anything.

we saw 1000's in High Wycombe on the way back from Stokenchurch

Becoming really well established around that area, hopefully they will spread out over a wider area in the next few years.....One thing i noticed is that they are more common around little villages in that area rather than on greenbelt land, maybe down to people leaving out carcasses for them......

So are Kites, like Hawks?

theres a bittern hide 3/4 of a mile from me and they have a board outside that you can put sightings on ,someone has put red kite and under it someones put and a flying elephant hahaha

The name Hawk Katie loosely means almost any bird of prey outside of Strigiformes (Owls).....Different parts of the world Hawk has different meanings, for example, in Africa, the Hawk is classed under the sub family of Accipitrinae of which Sparrowhawks are part of. In North America Hawk generally means falcon of small to medium size, and are in the family Accipitridae, the same as Red Kites........

lol Cakey

They look beautiful and would love to catch one like this mate did well bet they real fast...