Suffolk Birds 1996 Part 1

two kites circling over the same small area of woodland several times during this period and they had been heard calling on at least one occasion. These observations are strongly suggestive of breeding as non-breeding birds tend to search for food over open countryside rather than woodland, and are rarely heard calling. With the gamekeeper's help, a thorough search of woodland in the area was undertaken and the nest site was eventually located.

The nest was about 20m from the ground, in the upper branches of a mature Scot's Pine tree. It was situated well inside a relatively large area of mixed woodland, within a block of trees close to the edge of a large clear-felled area. This allowed the birds a clear flyway into the nest, something typical of kite territories in southern England and Wales where the nest tree is usually close to the edge of a wood. Over the next few weeks a single adult was seen regularly in the area and on occasions was seen carrying food into the wood. This was almost certainly the male bird bringing food to the female, now incubating eggs. On July 6th he nest tree was climbed and two chicks, now about 4 weeks old, lowered to the ground for ringing and tagging. Yellow wingtags (as for southern England 1996 fledged birds) were used, marked with a black '?' on one bird and an '*' on the other. Tagging has already allowed the progress of one of the chicks to be monitored closely. Yellow ? was first recorded in the Midlands in late October 1996 associating with birds released in 1995 and 1996. At the time of writing, in February 1997, it was still present and often joined the communal roost with birds from the reintroduction project.

Origins of the breeding pair The absence of wing-tags from either member of the pair by no means proves that the birds did not originate from the reintroduction programme. Although all released birds are fitted with wing-tags, the plastic attachments become brittle with age, probably as a result of exposure to sunlight, and often fall off after three or more years.

Wild-fledged chicks from the established reintroduced populations are also fitted with wing-tags before they leave the nest but in recent years it has proved impossible to tag all the young birds in each year. Not all nests are necessarily located each year and of the nests that are found, a small proportion may be too difficult to reach. The reintroduction programme started as long ago as 1989 and untagged adult birds are now not at all uncommon. Chicks from the increasing Welsh population have for several years been colour-ringed rather than fitted with wing-tags. As a result of tag loss from many adult birds and the change to colour-ringing, it is now relatively unusual to see a wing-tagged kite even within Wales.

What perhaps makes it unlikely that the Suffolk pair originated f r o m within Britain is the high degree of natal philopatry exhibited by the reintroduced and Welsh kites. (Evans et al. in press; Newton et al. 1994). Birds in their first year regularly wander away from the breeding areas and often travel considerable distances, but, when old enough to breed, the overwhelming tendency is to return to where they themselves were reared (or released). This is by no means unusual for large birds of prey and helps to explain, for example, the scarcity of breeding Buzzards in eastern England, despite the increasing numbers of visiting birds (Walls & Ken ward 1995). In fact, the slow rate of spread of the Welsh kite population and the assessment that natural recolonisation of England and Scotland was unlikely within a reasonable time scale was one of the main reasons for proceeding with the reintroduction programme.

It is thought that the partly migratory Red Kite populations in central and northern Europe, probably responsible for the majority of records in eastern counties of England, may exhibit a lower level of natal philopatry and be more likely to breed away from the area in which they were reared. Genetic studies have demonstrated that 8