Red Kites in some parts of mid-Wales are regularly fed by humans. This has a dual purpose: it is intended to help sustain and increase the kite population through the provision of extra food, and it also acts as a tourism draw.
Locations at which this takes place include:
- The Black Mountain Feeding Station at Llanddeusant in the Brecon Beacons, which is visited daily by over 50 birds.
- Gigrin Farm Red Kite Feeding and Rehabilitation Centre, near Rhayader where between 200 and 500 kites visit per day. The visiting birds regularly include the very rare leucistic (white) red kite.
- Nant-yr-Arian, a Forestry Commission centre near Ponterwyd, Ceredigion, where over 30 kites feed every day.
Debate has taken place over the effectiveness of kite-feeding as a conservation method. Practitioners of kite-feeding argue that it has helped to increase the species' population, and sustain the birds through poor winters. It has also been suggested that the practice of feeding kites has hampered their spread out of central Wales into other parts of the United Kingdom.
Famous quotes containing the words red, kite, feeding and/or wales:
“...deep down, deeper than everyday gets me, I am still one of them and will be till I die. In my heart and soul I belong to the lot and the red wagons and the Big Top.”
—Josephine Demott Robinson (1865–1948)
“What is to be done with people who can’t read a Sunday paper without messing it all up?... Show me a Sunday paper which has been left in a condition fit only for kite flying, and I will show you an antisocial and dangerous character who has left it that way.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“It no longer makes sense to speak of “feeding problems” or “sleep problems” or “negative behavior” is if they were distinct categories, but to speak of “problems of development” and to search for the meaning of feeding and sleep disturbances or behavior disorders in the developmental phase which has produced them.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“I just come and talk to the plants, really—very important to talk to them, they respond I find.”
—Charles, Prince Of Wales (b. 1948)