Recently, I was given access to an article written by someone I worked with some years ago. Phil is an expert glider pilot in his spare time and his article described a very long flight he had successfully made.

Watching a Red Kite working over the meadows alongside the river Windrush, I thought back to that article as the magnificent creature constantly trimmed and adjusted its tail and wings, holding station in the freshening breeze, searching for lift and height, spilling measured amounts of air to then dip and drop as it scanned the ground below.

The very being Phil had tried to emulate during his flight but lacking the same total freedom on his travels.

Reintroduced using young birds from Sweden and Spain, the Red Kite can now be considered almost common in and around Oxfordshire, sparsest in the north of the county.

Extremely common all over Britain in the middle ages and known as the ‘battle field bird’, it kept not only the results of war tidy but also our refuse- and carrion-filled towns and cities, particularly London with its teeming population.

And it is this carrion diet of the Kite which makes it all the more unbelievable that in other parts of the country it is still persecuted — poisoned and shot in the misplaced belief that it poses a threat to domestic and farm animals. Worms and some larger insects are about its only occasional living victims.

Our local population, based around the Chilterns, now numbers many hundreds of pairs, forcing them to spread out, particularly towards the Downs.

Here, its plumage of autumnal reds, golds, silver and brown remind one of a giant Chinese paper kite, dipping and hovering, trimming and soaring in total control of the element it uses so effortlessly.

The escarpment at Aston Rowant is the best place to view Kites, with the birds often being at eye level and, indeed, sometimes lower, so sit quietly and enjoy this true master of the air.

Keith Clack, Oxford Ornithological Society