Milvus milvus
A graceful, forked-tailed bird of prey brought back from the brink.
Size: 60-66 cm | Habitat: Farmland & Countryside Birds | Season: All year
Unmistakable in flight, the red kite is a large, reddish-brown bird of prey with long, angled wings and a deeply forked tail that twists constantly as it steers. Once reduced to a handful of pairs in Wales, reintroduction programmes have made it a common and spreading sight across much of Britain.
Reddish-brown body · long, angled wings with pale patches near the wingtips · deeply forked tail, constantly twisting in flight · effortless, soaring flight
Red kites are opportunistic scavengers as well as hunters, feeding on carrion, earthworms, and small mammals, and are often seen soaring low over roads and towns as well as open countryside.
By the 1930s only a few pairs of red kites survived in remote Welsh valleys — reintroduction schemes since the 1990s have seen numbers grow by well over 2,000% since 1995.
The Red Kite (Milvus milvus) is a large, reddish-brown bird of prey, unmistakable in flight thanks to its long, angled wings and deeply forked tail, which twists constantly as the bird steers.
By the 1930s, red kites survived in the UK only as a handful of pairs in remote Welsh valleys. Reintroduction programmes beginning in the 1990s, using birds from Spain and Sweden, have since re-established the species across large parts of England and Scotland, with numbers growing by well over 2,000% since 1995.
The red kite's recovery is now considered one of the great success stories of UK bird conservation, and its return to towns and roadsides as well as open countryside shows how a species once pushed to the very edge of extinction can be brought back through sustained, deliberate effort.
🟢 Conservation status: Green (UK Birds of Conservation Concern 5)
Green-listed under BoCC5, reflecting a dramatic, sustained recovery — the UK is now home to around 13% of the world's red kite population, with numbers still stable or increasing.