Bog Myrtle & Peat

There have been no kites in Scotland since 1879. Poisoned, trapped and shot into extinction, red kites were seen as dirty birds, responsible for killing lambs and game birds. When thirty-three young birds were reintroduced to Dumfries and Galloway in 2001, many people saw them for the first time. Over the past nine years, they have undergone a major resurrection in the area, and they can now be found gliding across the county.

When I was marking lambs on the Chayne last year, a single kite hovered over the pens as I worked. Occasionally it would swoop down on huge, fragile wings to scoop up a stray lamb’s tail and eat it in mid air, passing the food between claw and beak. It finally filled itself and alighted in the branches of an oak tree to keep an eye on proceedings with a critical expression. It was quite a novelty at the time, but this springtime has brought with it two more kites, delicately sailing in the breeze and trilling a peculiar whistle.

There is a traditional animosity between grouse keepers and birds of prey, but it is to be hoped that this is now fading into the past. Grouse shooting guarantees its own future by operating moors as conservation projects rather than industrial bird farms, and provided that a satisfactory balance can be reached, there is room for an incredible variety of flora and fauna on a modern shoot. Unsubstantiated rumours of kites killing lambs or carrying them away can be dispelled with a single look at the birds themselves. Although they are much the same size as a buzzard, they are spindly and horribly fragile. When they are fed at the RSPB station at nearby Laurieston, the volunteers have to chop up rabbit carcases into fist sized chunks so that the birds are able to carry them, so the idea of them being able to gather up lambs must be nonsense.

That is not to say that a kite will not gather up a grouse chick if the opportunity presented itself, but it is a loss that we can happily afford. It is such a thrill to see them tilting their wings in the sunshine that I am prepared to turn a blind eye to their potential misdemeanors.