Is it good to feed the birds?
Adam Bradbury
16 March 2012
This striking shot of Red Kites, by Guy Edwardes, has prompted a flurry of responses from readers of Friends of the Earth's magazine Earthmatters. Most wanted to get hold of a print. Some asked if it's good to feed the birds.
The Kites congregate in their hundreds in the skies over Gigrin farm in mid-Wales. At 2 or 3pm a tractor rolls up with buckets of beef - which the farmer shovels out onto the grass. The raptors swoop and snatch up chunks, eating it airborne. Rooks wait their turn in the trees nearby.
It's an awesome sight - I was there a few weeks ago. A Kite's wingspan can match the height of Angelina Jolie or Lionel Messi. Against a clear blue sky their yellow eyes and russet feathers seem almost too good to be true.
One reader suggests that's just the point - it's all a bit too good to be true. Won't feeding them stop their offspring learning to catch their own food?
Chris Powell, who feeds the Kites at Gigrin, is used to the question.
His response? Look at how the Red Kite population has grown. Driven to the edge of extinction early last century, they're now found in every county of Wales. It's widely regarded as conservation success story.
Powell says that some days at Gigrin you get 200, and on winter days as many as 600 birds can turn up. Clearly they're finding food elsewhere. "They're not reliant on the feeding - it's a top-up."
He points out that farmers are no longer allowed to leave dead sheep out - and this has removed one source of food Kites would have eaten at one time.
Which got me thinking. Sheep carcasses back then weren't exactly pristine nature at work either. We humans have changed, harnessed, helped and harassed nature. For some species there's no going back. Thankfully that's not been the fate of the Red Kite.
But if we want top-of the-food-chain predators to fend for themselves, the rest of the chain has to be in good enough shape. Not all the beasts and bugs around us are as instantly charismatic as the Red Kite - but that doesn't mean they're less valuable. How we protect and enhance them and the planet that supports us is surely a question we have to keep asking, answering - and doing something about.
It's a lot to do with why I work at Friend of the Earth.
Adam Bradbury
Publishing & New Media Team
Subscribe to this blog by email using Google's subscription service.
