Since 2003, the Chilterns Conservation Board has brought you up close and personal with a family of red kites. The project uses Big Brother style CCTV technology to get an insight into the breeding behaviour of a pair of red kites, as they build their nest, lay and incubate their eggs and rear their chicks.
2008
We set up the camera on last year's unsuccessful nest, but our birds didn't return to it. A new red kite nest was located in mid-May with three chicks, but unfortunately all three chicks died in the cold, wet weather over the late May Bank Holiday weeked. No other suitable red kite nests could be located, but we were fortunate enough to find a kestrel nest with two chicks and live images of this nest can now be seen at the Studley Green Garden Store coffee shop on the A40 near Stokenchurch. The chicks are likely to be in the nest until mid July.
video clips from previous years
These three clips, from mid-June 2006 show the chick at 5-6 weeks:
Playing with the contents of the nest (including a food wrapper)
Being fed by both its parents
Having a 'tug-of-war' over a twig with its mother.
The chick was fitted with yellow and green tags with the number 51. It fledged at the end of June.
The clips below are from previous years’ Nest Watches and show different parents to those filmed this year.
Video clip 4
In this first clip from 2004, the biggest chick viciously attacks its youngest sibling. With this regular harassment, it's not surprising that the smallest chick's development was severely hampered.
Video clip 5
This second clip again from 2004 shows a more amicable feeding session, with the mother feeding the smaller chick (on the right) and the father feeding the other two.
Video clip 6
In this first sequence from 2003, the chicks are 2-3 weeks old. Both parents are regularly bringing food to the nest – you will see first the female and then the male feed them. The youngest chick is a bit smaller than its siblings and occasionally gets picked on!
Video clip 7
In the second sequence from 2003, the chicks are 6-7 weeks old and have most of their adult plumage. They have not yet flown but spend a lot of their time flapping their wings to build up flight muscles. The oldest chick is attempting, with difficulty, to eat a weasel that a parent has brought in. You can just see one of the other chicks behind it.
What happened in previous years?
In 2003, all three chicks fledged successfully. They were fitted with coloured wing tags when about six weeks old so that they could be identified when they were spotted again. The tag on the left wing was yellow to indicate the bird is from the Chilterns and had a red strip at the bottom which showed they were hatched in 2003. On the right wing, the colours were reversed. The tags also had a number – our three chicks were assigned the numbers 65,66 and 67. To our knowledge, all three are alive and well. Number 67 attempted to breed in 2005, but was unsuccessful.
In 2004, the biggest of the three chicks was as removed from the nest for re-location to Southern Scotland. The two remaining chicks were fitted with yellow wing tags on each wing with the numbers A2 and A6 respectively. A6 fledged successfully, but A2 crash-landed the day after she fledged and had to receive care for an injured wing. She made a full recovery and was released in 2006 in a new red kite re-introduction programme near Gateshead.
In 2005, three chicks hatched, but only two survived. The bigger of the two surviving chicks was fitted with yellow and orange tags with the number 69 and was last spotted in March 2006. The smaller chick wasn’t big enough to have a tag fitted when the nest was visited. Due to technical difficulties, we were unable to capture any video footage in 2005.
In 2006, our parents deserted their nest, so a new nest was located. This new nest had been built by a different pair and they raised one single chick. This chick was fitted with yellow and green tags with the number 51. It fledged at the end of June.
In 2007, the 2006 pair returned to their old nest but unfortunately they failed to hatch any chicks, probably because of the bad weather.
viewing the nest
watch video clips RealOne
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acknowledgments
The Chilterns Conservation Board would like to thank Advanced Diagnostics Ltd and Fidget Ltd for their equipment which helped make the nest watch project possible.
