April Showers and Red Kites

The other day after being out, I returned home not long before the rain came. As its April and it has been a wet month, that should not be surprising. However, the reason for mentioning it here, is as that shower tailed off, I opened the back door to take out the rinsed milk bottles and put out the rubbish. I found a pool of water lapping at the door seal. The reason was a blockage in the drain. This is something I still need to clear properly, but I did do a temporary job. Anyway, last night more heavy rain was forecast, and it must have been playing on my mind as I woke up and knew I had to check the drain. While I had not flooded but I had to clear the drain again.

This caused me to get up latter than I expected. While I wanted to be out early, I was the only person that was effected by this. However, because I was still in the house at the opening of office hours, my attempts to leave the house was disturbed by the telephone. While I was tempted to ignore it, I would only have wondered who it was. It turned out it was the food hygiene department of the local council regarding the “Eggs Incident” While I don't intend to disclose the nature of the conversation, I am heartened to see the authorities taking the matter seriously. And to those readers that feel this matter is trivial, in some ways selling caged eggs as free range is. However, if there were a disease outbreak or a salmonella contamination and a recall occurred of all eggs from caged production, there would be people put at risk by thinking that what they had thought were free range eggs were safe.

Anyway, this lead to me having to stay home. As I sat at my desk, I could see in the distance, over the treetops the Red Kite that I had been hoping to film. What was even more frustrating was that the bird was around for well over an hour. So close but so far. Yet from my distant vantage point, I witnessed the kite do something I have only seen previously on film, a Red Kite hovering. For anyone who has not seen a Red Kite, we are talking about a bird that has a wing span of over one and a half metres, so to see such precision flying is amazing. Had it not been for the trees in my line of sight, well at least in my mind I was getting some incredible footage.

Anyway when I had finished dealing with the council officer, I was able to head out to get some lunch, and much to my surprise the red kite was still in the area. While beyond the range of vision from my windows, I was pleased to see the bird still around. Following a quick bought sandwich rather than my buying bread to make my own, I was out like a shot.

I had the tantalising prospect of the kite in my vision, but at a distance. Not willing to be deterred, I headed into the direction the Kite had been flying, although graceful gliding is a better description, and for over an hour was tantalised by the occasionally glimpse of the Kite. I lost site of the bird, but I continued searching.

Eventually, I realised that the bird had landed in a tree. I was not totally sure, when I spotted it, if I had found the Red Kite or not. I am not used to seeing them perched, so I approached with caution. The difficulty was the trees were obscuring my vision. Finally I got this picture, just before it took off again, and I could be sure it was the Kite. By this time I could not follow as I was well and truly caught in the wood with no way of extricating myself easily nor with any clear view of the bird.

While I am starting to get some rather good (types with smug grin) pictures of late, it has actually been the months of hard work tracking and working out territory that has really paid off. As well as a lot of luck.