The habitat in their mid-Wales remnant area is not particularly good for them and this was just the last area where they were not being persecuted, rather than the best area for them. Conservation measures, including вЂrewardвЂ™ payments to landowners on whose land they bred, helped the Welsh population to grow, although the productivity was low at only around one chick per pair. One of the last known to breed in England (in Shropshire) was shot in 1863 and in Scotland they persisted to about 1885.ДЄfter that, the only Red Kites breeding in Britain were those in a rump population in mid-Wales, down, at its lowest point in the 1930s, to only one pair that reared young that survived and subsequently went on to become parents themselves, the species thus being almost extinct in the UK. By the late 18th century kites were scarce in the county, only found on the large estates, and by the year 1800 they had probably gone, Cheshire bearing the dubious distinction of being one of the first counties to extirpate the Red Kite (Lovegrove 2007).

The status of the Red Kite in Cheshire can be judged from the numbers killed for which a bounty was paid: 862 birds in the parish of Tarporley in 19 years from 1662-1681 and 698 birds in the parish of Bunbury in just eight years 1715-1722 (Lovegrove 2007). The Vermin Act of Queen Elizabeth I (1566) first targeted kites, along with many other species, supposedly to protect grain. They were common and performed an important role in urban sanitation until ShakespeareвЂ™s day, being valued and protected in England by Royal Decree вЂ“ in 1465 killing a kite was a capital offence вЂ“ although at the same time the King of Scotland was ordering their destruction. For several centuries the fortunes of the Red Kite in Britain have been intimately linked with manвЂ™s actions.

Red kite hawk