Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE FALCON-LIKE BIRDS

THE KITES, BUZZARDS, EAGLES, HAWKS, AND ALLIES

The Common Kite

or Glead (M. milvus), is a more or less abundant bird of central and southern Europe, and was once a familiar sight in the British Islands and even in the streets of London, but owing to ceaseless persecution it is now confined as a breeding bird to a few pairs in Scotland and Wales. It is about twenty-five inches in length, with the upper parts reddish brown, the feathers with pale edges, those of the head and neck being grayish white streaked with brown.

The under parts are rust-colored with longitudinal streaks of brown. The female is similar, but has the upper parts a deeper brown and the head and neck white.

Hudson says the Kite is one of the finest of the diurnal birds of prey: “The great extent of his sharp-pointed wings and his long, forked tail fit him for an aerial life. In appearance he is a swallow-shaped Eagle, and few birds equal him in grace and majesty of motion when he soars at a vast height. Like the Eagles, Buzzards, and other strong fliers among the raptores, he soars for exercise and recreation, and, vulture-like, when soaring he is ever on the watch for a meal, and, vulture-like, he will feed on garbage, for though of so noble an appearance, and possessed of great power, he has, compared with the Falcons, a poor spirit, and his name is a term of reproach that signifies cowardice and rapacity.

A carrion-eater, he also preys on small mammals, reptiles, and birds, in most cases the young, the sickly, or wounded.”The nest is a bulky affair of sticks and rubbish placed in a tree or a ledge on a rock. The eggs, two to four in number, are much spotted with brown.

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