Talk:Red kite

message: The article refers to Derwent Valley indicating it is in the UK. The page pointed to is in Tasmania. It needs to be disambiguated but I do not know which River Derwent to point it to as there are several. May be someone who knows of the area for reintroduction can oblige?
Keith D 17:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Derwent Valley 

message: I have changed the rating of this article to C as it is woefully undereferenced and appears to contain a lot of original research e.g. 
"The Kites are a common sight above the houses of the Buckinghamshire villages of Stokenchurch, Stone, Whitchurch and Haddenham and also the towns of Princes Risborough and as far east as Chesham, the Oxfordshire towns of Didcot and Wallingford, and their surrounding areas. Sightings are common along the M40 between Oxford and Wycombe, all the way down to Reading and Newbury on the M4"
Where does that information come from? The section on "Behaviour" is almost completely devoid of references, reference 1, which is used 4 times, goes to a wikipedia page and a dead link. Also the section on "Populations and trends by country" has a list of souces (i.e. The following figures (mostly estimates) have been collated from various sources.[10][11][2][12][13]) rather than inline references for each figure. Richerman (talk) 00:39, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now updated the dead link Richerman (talk) 01:00, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-rated as C class 

message: I understand the main article is not the place for gossip so this is the best place. I have spotted the Red Kite in Sulhamstead, Berks, half way up the hill. Another location 20 miles away is Sheldons road in Hook, Hants where it passes by early each afternoon.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.156.253 (talk) 13:09, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Talk pages are not for gossip either, or for general discussions of the subject - they are for for discussing improvements to the article. see wp:talk page Richerman (talk) 22:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Spotted

message: There is a colony near Corby in Northamptonshire close to the A43 towards Stamford. I have spotted them above the road towards Kettering at Geat Oakley, and also above the old disused airfield at Lower Benefield.   Guy (talk) 12:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Northants 

message: The definition of mobbing in the relevant artice is "an antipredator behavior which occurs when individuals of a certain species mob a predator by cooperatively attacking or harassing it" The picture in the "distribution and behaviour" shows one red kite flying above an eagle. The caption said a red kite mobbing a white tailed eagle" and as there is only one red kite I changed "mobbing" to "harassing" as one bird clearly can't mob. It has however been changed back so I've changed it again. To be honest, there's nothing in the article about mobbing and all the picture shows is one bird flying above another so it doesn't really illustrate anything and I'm tempted to remove it altogether, however, if it's to stay in, at least get the caption right. Please don't change it back to "mobbing" unless you can explain how one bird can cooperatively attack a predator. Richerman (talk) 22:30, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never known any of the many birders or professional ornithologists I know refer to such behaviour, by a single bird, as anything other than "mobbing". The term is also used for single birds in, for example , , , , this from 1954 & the RSPB. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:12, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough, point made, I stand corrected - thanks for the explanation. It seems an incorrect use of the English language to me and in the OED under "mob" it says "of a group of birds, fly noisily and aggressively close to a predator", but if it's used for single birds by professionals then that's what we have to go with. Perhaps someone should change the definition in the Animal mobbing behavior article. Now, if we could have a picture that actually showed the behaviour, like one of your examples it would be a lot more useful :) Having just been on holiday near Aberystwyth I have to say that, from my limited observations, it seems to be the red kites that get mobbed most of the time rather than the other way round. I saw them being attacked by crows and gulls on a number of occasions.  Richerman (talk) 21:07, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mobbing 

message: The introductory para stated this is a "rare species" - by what definition? It may not be common but it is far from rare in many parts of its wide range. Detailed information on distribution and status is further down the article including an estimate of 19K-25K pairs in Europe. I deleted the reference to rarity in the intro as it seemed misleading. Newburyjohn (talk) 10:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The UK population continues to increase and they are an almost daily sight over the city of Oxford where I live. I understand the population is so high in some locations that they are once again starting to be considered a pest, or at least a nuisance. --Ef80 (talk) 15:20, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rare species? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Information should be added from this brief, barely notable and poorly referenced article, into the main Red kite article in the United Kingdom section. Mountaincirque 12:16, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The main info on the sites for Red Kite observation in Wales have now been added to this article. Please review and make any further amends before the merg is finalised and the source page can be deleted. Mountaincirque 10:36, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merge with [[Red kite feeding in Wales]] 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: While I'm at it. Not a criticism of the article per se, but the tone/bias and quality of the data. This article is heavily dependent on the information/perspective promoted by Birdlife International. Digging somewhat deeper into the data, there are some things which bug me: 
*BI goes on about the reduction in numbers in Germany in the 1990s, and use the 1990 estimated population as a baseline/control, but what is not mentioned is that the population in Germany tripled or more in the decades leading up to 1990.  
*BI claims intentional and secondary poisonings are the main threats to the maintenance of the population, however, looking at Germany, where the main population decrease happened, the decline can be linked to the reunification and the subsequent modernisation of agriculture in Eastern Germany (specifically waste/carcass management, more hygienic slaughterhouses, lower wastage and pests), poisoning is not a factor. Regarding intentional poisoning, the only references to this are a handful of high-profile incidents during the British reintroduction, mostly in the late 1980s. Regarding secondary poisoning, this appears to be related to the mass use of superwarfarins to control voles in Spain in the 1990s; BI refers in this case to certain speeches during conferences and general information sources, but how trustworthy is this? I am not aware that this method is legal in the EU any more. Or are they referring to historical cases such as elimination programs in Britain and elsewhere a few centuries ago, and the use of DDT in the 1950s and 1960s? There is a bit of conflict of interest/local perspective here: the people who wrote the IUCN red list page for BI are the same who wrote the report on the decline in Spain and blame it on poisonings.
*BI downgraded this species from 'least concern' to 'near threatened' in 2005 due to a report on the decline in Spain (and Germany) from 1990 to 2000, but the population in general appears to be increasing virtually everywhere else, with the range expanding throughout northern Europe. The numbers don't appear to add up to reach the 20% reduction between 1990 to 2000, but even if they did, the population appears to be increasing in the two decades since, yet the conservation status remains unchanged. One can also question the accuracy of estimates of historical population numbers, the high 1977 number for Spain for example, on what is that estimate based and can it really be compared to modern population estimates?
*This article is further exaggerating information somewhat. In the case of Germany, the population was estimated at 12,000 to 18,000 in the early 2000s, but only the lower number is given here, whereas the much less trustworthy number from the 1980s is reported in full. In France and Italy the population has increased, according to the data provided in the table, but is said to be decreasing or unknown, respectively. Ukraine has almost no data provided, but the population is said to be decreasing (it is extirpated as of 2003 according to the Red List for the Ukraine, but still... no evidence given here). In Hungary the editor has chosen the lowest modern population count available (1998), whereas the 2018 count has 41 pairs, showing an increase. Idem in Austria, the 2000 count, if accurate, is possibly the lowest available since it's recolonisation in the 1970s; the 2015 count is 28 to 35 pairs, again showing an increase. The population in Belgium and Poland is as of 2018 much higher than reported in the data from the 1990s used here (pop. increases of 400% to 4000% since the 1980s!). Cabo Verde should be left out entirely -the population in the 1980s is probably mostly of hybrids, there appears to be no decline in numbers here, but it is not possible to tell.  
Cheers, Leo   86.83.56.115 (talk) 13:42, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly the UK reintroduction has been hugely successful (perhaps even too successful) and individual birds or pairs are now a very common sight throughout England and Wales. The 2014 infobox map probably understates the UK range. --Ef80 (talk) 16:23, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rarity - Some Critical Thought 

message: Hi,
I have added a new Cultural significance section as other Taxonomy articles, and added sourced info on the bird's association with Powys, and it's unofficial status as the national bird of Wales. 
Have also repurposed the unsourced statement that Kites (not specifically Red Kites) had negative associations in Medieval England as a lead-in for it's use (again, not specifically Red Kites) as a similie in King Lear. I do not have the background to improve or source these statements but felt the new section was more fitting for them. Cymrogogoch (talk) 09:41, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: You copied the article Lion? Why? S Philbrick(Talk) 12:43, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cultural significance