Red Kite - Cameos of Bird Life #15
It was one of those serendipitous moments - hanging out the washing I looked up at the sound of whistling, thinking it was the farmer working his dogs. Only to see a couple of Red Kite rising from the fields with lazy wing beats and forked tails twisting - pale red-brown marionettes in the morning sun ...
distant bells
red kite rising
into sunlight
Once a very rare bird, thanks to successful reintroduction projects these wonderful birds can now be seen regularly in all parts of Britain. It’s a real joy to see them soaring high in the sky.
Artist Biography
The header image of, ‘Red Kite in Mere Bowl’ by James Lynch, is painted using the ancient medium of egg tempera - a mix of pure ground pigments, egg yolk and water giving the painting a distinctive translucent glow.
James grew up in Wiltshire and lives in Somerset. Since his first sell-out exhibition in the West Country in the 1980s he has won awards, exhibited regularly in London and received many commissions from private clients and corporations. He is a keen paraglider pilot and this ‘wild flying’ with buzzards inspires many of his atmospheric Wessex skyscapes and landscape paintings, for which he is known.
Here is a link to his website ...
https://www.james-lynch.co.uk/index.htmlYou can also see many of his stunning paintings on Instagram ...
https://www.instagram.com/james56lynch/?hl=enAudio Citation
The recording by Beatrix Saadi-Varchmin, is used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license. This and many more can be found at - Xeno-Canto a website dedicated to sharing bird sounds from all over the world.
Ah, that’s a different sound than in Buckinghamshire, where it sounds like part of a human song. Intriguing.
Alan
Thanks Alan, yes I think they have quite a range of ‘local‘ dialects, variously described as mewing, whistling or screaming. I’ve never heard of one that sounds like part of a song. Fascinating!
I really look forward to your posts. The sounds, the poetry. You really have it going on my friend.
Thank you for your continued support. It’s great to know that my poetry has a home there.
What a wonderful painting and kite-song
Thank you Jane. I was really chuffed to find the painting. It so matched my haiku written a year ago now. And that call – so un-birdlike!
The haiku also is sonal-evocative!
It was a very special moment when I saw them. Thank you.
The moment was verging on visionary. So the poem came a little bit from that. The painting with its sunbeams shining down took me back to days of my very early childhood (when I was about 3 ) when I first tried to paint them. I think I was laughed at but I felt even then that they led somewhere.
Brilliant, Clive, the Red Kite sounds just like the farmer whistling to his dogs! It’s an amazing call and nothing like the Buzzard’s whistling either! We have a few Red Kite here, reintroduced here from Wales about 10 years ago. It’s slow progress for them to re-establish here. I did some voluntary work with the NIRSG a couple of years ago. A beautiful bird. Marvellous verse too! 🙏
Thanks Ashley, I was surprised to see them and even more surprised by their call. Glad to hear they are at least holding their own in Northern Ireland.
Slowly, they return, but with such a small population they are easily abused.
It’s such a shame that birds and animals of all sorts (as well as our planet) are abused in one way or another. We are a hugely greedy/needy species seemingly bent on self destruction.
Dear Clive, all of nature and the planet is in such an awful mess I sometimes feel like one of those people walking around with a billboard declaring “the end is nigh”. It is difficult trying to remain positive!
Me too Ashley! It’s all a bit sad 😔
Wow, that does sound just like a human whistling!! You’ve painted a beautiful description of the kites, and the painting by James Lynch is gorgeous! I will transform and transplant your rising haiku into our growing Garden. Thanks, Clive!
Thanks Ed. It’s kind of you to keep transplanting. The garden is looking gorgeous.
Ah! This brought to mind when I was in Britain way back when I was 15 and saw red kites over the meadows!
That must have been awesome Cathy. They are sort of fantasy birds. And like the Raven have been around since medieval times or even before.
A great combination yet again of your poetry, bird art and info on another beautiful bird. My daughter now sees them over West London!
Thank you Georgina. It’s wonderful that they are being seen again in some of their ‘medieval’ haunts.
[…] This uplifting hokku was composed by Clive Bennett. […]