Rescue
It's hard not to be impressed by these mighty birds! Even our experienced BTO ringers were in awe of this red kite’s huge wing span.
Rescued after he was, strangely, spotted walking down a street, his X-rays have cleared him of anything sinister, but he continued to only want to walk and hop, rather than take any form of flight.
Rehabilitation
With him, going through his annual main moult, several of his flight feathers weren't quite fully developed, along with his tail feathers also growing at an uneven rate. All this combined had created some, well, turbulence. His usual flawless flight, was experiencing some aerodynamic issues, thus making flight harder to maintain.
Placed into one of our larger aviaries, allowing him the time and space to exercise his massive wing span, each day, small improvements in the increasing heights he was attempting were a daily sight.
Helping to provide us and the BTO with vital data for rehabilitated birds, our licensed BTO ringers, fitted the adult bird with a metal identification ring, as well as weighing him and measuring his primary flight feathers, that helped to identify him as male.
Release
After a week in one of our large flight aviaries, he passed his flight test, effortlessly and was given the all clear for release.
We wish this magnificent bird all the luck, as he returns to life in the wild.
