At the end of the school holidays we took a week away in Wales with very dear friends. Based right on the coast along Cardigan Bay we spent much of our time by, in or on the sea. Red Kites are clearly thriving and Choughs were seen at most spots along the coast - the coast path north of Aberporth being most productive. Ravens seemed ever
present in the skies and the odd Peregrine completed the Big Four for the area. We watched all at some point over our garden in Llangranog, a nice bonus. A further bonus came when several pods of Bottle-nosed Dolphins performed off the beach at Penbryn. A couple were pretty close in an indulged in acrobatics, leaving the water fully a couple of times.
My first trip to Mid-Wales was in 1984 as a 10 year old child and it took a bit of time to track down Red Kites as there was a very slowly growing population but still well below 100 pairs. I had spent many hours reading and re-reading Roger Lovegrove's Birdwatchers Diary and a Red Kite experience had become a grail for me. When I did see one my reaction was visceral and I went shaky and cried, later in the day we had a phenomenal view of a bird in the valley beneath us near Strata Florida Abbey. On this trip with Red Kites now a common sight in many areas of the UK an unplanned roadside stop near the Abbey still delivered a Red Kite experience to equal that first. The girls needed a break from the windy roads which were inducing some travel sickness, and the whistles of Kites all around had me looking to the skies. Although I could see a few birds soaring I couldn't locate the bird responding well to mine and Erin's whistles very near by. The bird that watched on, eluding me by it's audacity, was in the very nearest hillside tree and gave us prolonged and fantastic views.
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