They love stealing knickers from washing lines but move with awe-inspiring grace.

Few creatures can claim to be more wild, yet their favourite haunt in Britain appears to be the M40 in Oxfordshire. Now there can be few doubts that the once-extinct red kite is truly on the fast road to recovery.

If any proof was needed of this most remarkable of nature's comebacks, it came in the presence of Japanese Emperor Akihito no less, during his recent visit to a nature reserve at Little Milton, near Thame.

As the Emperor and the imperial entourage raised their binoculars, a pair of red kites gave a magnificent aerial display.

Hopefully, the Japanese visitors left without being told how we managed to persecute to extinction these spectacular fork-tailed birds of prey.

The red kites became extinct in England back in 1870 and in Scotland 20 years later through shooting and poisoning.

Only the remotest parts of mid-Wales remained as strongholds.

Today there are 80 breeding pairs, with a total of about 300 birds in Oxfordshire and the Chilterns, where most of the British red kite population now lives.

The astonishing turnabout began in 1989 when red kite chicks were first brought from Spain and Sweden to the Chilterns as part of a species recovery programme run by English Nature and the RSPB. English Nature's Nigel Snell, who lives in Henley, said: "Their reintroduction became a flagship project for us. They are wonderful birds and should be here anyway.

"We released about 20 birds a year between 1989 and 1994."

The population in the Chilterns has risen from four pairs in 1992 to 33 pairs in 1996 and 51 last year.

These days, twitchers have cause to be on red alert on long stretches of the M40.

Local families have now begun putting out food in their gardens such as chicken, guinea fowl carcasses and dead mice to attract the birds, so that they can get a closer look.

Retired engineer Pat Bird, 72, said: "They look like Stuka bombers coming and the whoosh of their wings is amazing.

They recognise me from high up and have no fear when taking the food.

I feed them every day and they now literally come in their dozens.

"It really is a great pleasure to watch their acrobatics. There has been enormous interest.

"I met one chap who had come up from London to see them.

He had spotted a red kite while driving along the motorway, then decided to come back after identifying the bird in a book at home."

But Mr Bird, who lives on the Oxfordshire-Berkshire border, asked us not to identify his village because of the threat of egg collectors.

Almost unbelievably, seven red kites were poisoned last year and two nests were robbed by collectors, says the RSPB.

HAT BIRDS

Red kites were known as the hat birds because of their habit of stealing hats off people's heads.

They were wiped out because of a perceived threat to game. But they are essentially scavengers, eating carrion and taking crow chicks and mice.

The birds will use knickers, bras, socks, plastic bags and string for their nests.

They lay eggs in early April but the entire breeding season lasts until mid-August.

They were once common even in London and were mentioned by Shakespeare.

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