22 Mar 2020

22 Mar 20 - Red Kite (Not) #BWKM0

It's been a quiet day on the Bird front. I had been hoping a Red Kite would fly over as there have been a number of sightings across Dorset throughout the weekend & I have a good view facing West from my study. The vast majority of records in the Purbeck area of Dorset, are still Spring migrants that move East from March to May on dry, sunny days with generally light, and often Easterly, winds. This pattern has been well established for the last few years & many Dorset Birders are probably keeping any regular eye skywards on these conditions.
Red Kite: This individual was moving East through a few years ago (Jun 14)
Given the time of the year, my assumption is these are young Birds which haven't established territories yet, have wandered to the South West for the Winter & are now generally drifting back to closer to where they were born. A bit of speculation with this idea, but if they were adults then they should have been on breeding territories for some time already.
 
So, one interesting question is where are they spending the Winter. I've not heard of large numbers of Red Kites down West, but perhaps that is just because they are there, but well-spaced out or perhaps too common for anybody to both mentioning. Anyway, the weather isn't looking like it will be changing in the next few days, so I might still get one soon over the house. With a few weeks of working at home & plenty of conference calls being booked, I will have plenty of time to look out of the window, when nobody is presenting documents on the laptop screen.

Check tomorrow to see the next day's wildlife sighting at #BWKM0.