Red Kite Feeding Station BellyMack Farm Galloway

Recently we were in Scotland for a week. Apart from attending the wedding of our niece in Melrose and staying at the wonderful Broomfields B&B there the highlight for me was our homeward visit to the amazing red kite feeding station at BellyMack Hill Farm Galloway in the West of Scotland borders region. If you love wildlife and bird watching in particular, you really do not want to miss this joyous experience. We saw hundreds of red kites drop in from the sky, to enjoy the off cuts of meat she puts out for them, every day at 2 pm. £5 entry for an unforgetable enthralling experience! I've never seen anything like this.
Red Kites are beautiful birds and superb flyers. They used to be all over England until all 'hawk beaked', birds were persecuted under the orders of rich landowners, supported by royalty, who wanted to preserve their pheasant and grouse shoots. The red kites are mostly scavengers. Much of the diet today is road and mice voles rabbits etc killed behind tractors cutting the grass.The red kite's diet consists mainly of small mammals such as mice, voles, shrews, young hares and rabbits. It feeds on a wide variety of carrion including sheep carcasses and dead game birds. Live birds are also taken and occasionally reptiles and amphibians. Earthworms form an important part of the diet, especially in spring. In some parts of the United Kingdom. Recently red kites are also deliberately fed in domestic gardens, explaining the presence of red kites in urban areas. Here, up to 5% of householders have provided supplementary food for red kites, with chicken the predominant meat provided!
As scavengers, red kites are particularly susceptible to poisoning. Illegal poison baits set for foxes or crows are indiscriminate and kill protected birds and other animals. There have also been a number of incidents of red kites and other raptors being targeted by wildlife criminals