28th April - Escape Black Kite over Borth Bog

On Sunday I had brief, silhouetted views of what I thought was a Black Kite circling in a thermal high over Glandwr pool, the bird appeared to be very worn and seemed to be carrying something with its legs (as BOP's often do), after half a minute or so the bird headed SSE at great height. I wasn't really sure about the ID of the bird so decided not to post anything and the bird was long gone anyway, so no chance of a twitch or anything like that. The tail of the bird looked a bit rounded and the wing pattern wasn't quite discernible from my pictures, so Marsh Harrier or something weird couldn't really be ruled out.

Today I've had my thoughts confirmed as the Black Kite has been seen at Portland Bird Obs, Dorset, although what it was carrying were jesses, making it an escaped falconers bird. The bird was seen on the Gower on the 30th April as well, so obviously on its way south!

The pictures of the bird at Portland today can be found on the link:
https://twitter.com/PortlandBirdObs/status/1123911605992005641

The bird has a broken primary on the left wing and a small gap in the secondaries on the right wing and a very worn tail which made it look more rounded as the shallow fork that's usually present has been worn away, and what I could see around its feet were almost certainly the jesses seen in the Portland pics.