Spotting Red Kites and Buzzards in Open Countryside

Two raptors well worth slowing down for

Walkers in Britain are luckier than they often realise. Two of our most conspicuous birds of prey — the red kite and the common buzzard — now drift over farmland, wooded valleys and moorland edges from the chalk hills of southern England to the Highlands. You don't need to be a seasoned birder or own a telescope. A decent pair of binoculars, a footpath with a view and a willingness to stand still for ten minutes will do most of the work.

The skill is simple: know what you're looking at, pick the right stretch of trail, and let the birds come to you. Both species are masters of the free ride, spending hours on rising air without a single wingbeat. That makes them wonderfully easy to watch — once you've trained your eye to the sky rather than the stile.

Telling a kite from a buzzard

At distance, both are big, broad-winged and brownish, and it's easy to talk yourself into the wrong identification. Get them within a few hundred metres and the differences are straightforward.

• Red kite: long, angled wings held in a shallow V, and a deeply forked tail that constantly twists and corrects as the bird steers. Look for a pale grey head, a russet body and a bright white patch on the underwing near the tips.
• Buzzard: compact and chunky, with rounded wings and a short, fan-shaped tail. Plumage varies enormously — from almost white to dark chocolate — but most birds show a pale chest band and dark wingtips.
• Voice: a buzzard mews, a thin, plaintive pee-yaa that carries right across a valley. A kite whistles, a soft descending whee-ooo, usually while looking down at the ground.

Flight style gives them away too. Buzzards soar on flat wings and will hang almost motionless into a headwind, as if suspended on a string. Kites rarely hang; they sideslip, drift and adjust, forever trimming their long tail.

Reading the landscape as you walk

Where you walk matters as much as how you walk. Red kites favour lowland farmland, river valleys and the edges of woodland near villages. They are scavengers as much as hunters, so they follow the plough, investigate muck spreading, and patrol road verges for carrion. Footpaths running along a valley side, canal towpaths beside grazing pasture and farmland bridleways are prime kite country.

Buzzards want a little more structure in the landscape. Give them a ridge to soar along, a hedgerow-lined field to hunt from a fencepost, a patch of clearfell, or a rough, tussocky pasture full of voles. Upland footpaths that follow a shoulder of hill are excellent, particularly where a conifer plantation gives way to open ground.

Both birds use the same trick: they find a windward slope, ride the air deflected upwards, and use the height to scan. If you're walking a ridgeway on a breezy day, look up and behind you.

Timing: when the sky gets busy

Thermals build through the morning and peak in the early afternoon, so the middle of a bright, still day is often the best time to see birds circling. Cool, clear mornings after a frost are excellent, as birds warm up in the sun on a favoured post or dead branch before taking to the air.

Spring is the season of spectacle. From March, buzzards perform their display flights — steep climbs, tumbling dives and a lot of mewing — and kites begin their own slow, tumbling courtship above the treeline. Through summer, adults ferry food to noisy young, which often gives away a nest wood long before you see a bird. In winter, kites gather at communal roosts, and a dusk walk can end with a dozen or more birds drifting in from three directions at once.

Wind matters more than most people expect. In a stiff breeze, both species stay low and shelter behind hedges and woods. On gentler days they climb. If it's blowing hard, save the raptor-watching for the walk back.

Fieldcraft: quiet feet and steady glass

Good watching is mostly good manners. A few habits will both improve your sightings and keep the birds undisturbed.

• Scan with your naked eye first, then raise the binoculars — swinging glass around the sky is a quick route to a stiff neck and nothing else.
• Keep to the footpath, especially between March and July. Never approach a nest or a recently fledged young bird, and never use recordings to draw birds in.
• Watch the bird's behaviour. If it's calling repeatedly, staring down at you or making passes overhead, you're too close. Back off and it will settle.
• Don't leave bait or food out. Feeding changes behaviour, concentrates birds unnaturally and causes problems for landowners and livestock.
• On farmland, close gates, keep dogs under close control near livestock, and give way to horses and working vehicles.

What to carry, and how to look

An 8x42 binocular is the sweet spot for walkers: light enough to carry all day, bright enough for dull afternoons, and wide enough to find a bird quickly. Wear it on a chest harness rather than round your neck, and keep a lens cloth handy — British weather will test it.

Beyond that, pack a map, a warm layer and a flask. The best encounters usually happen when you've stopped for a breather on a gate, and the birds drift over while you're not looking for them. Give a ridgeline path twenty minutes of stillness and something always turns up.

Learn one or two flight calls, note the wind direction, and glance up every few minutes rather than staring at your boots. Red kites and buzzards are among the great rewards of walking in the British countryside — and they're there above almost every path, waiting for you to lift your head.