The red kite, Milvus milvus, is a largish bird of prey that was once a common sight throughout Britain not only out in the countryside but also in towns and cities where it was welcomed for its habit of scavenging all sorts of carrion and offal from the streets.

They rarely go for live prey as they are weak hunters but will take rats, voles and anything small, including beetles and worms, which is why they will follow behind a plough to feed on whatever is unearthed.

In the 16th and 17th centuries it was mistakenly believed that kites were a threat to livestock and they were persecuted mercilessly to the extent that by 1871 in England and 1879 in Scotland the bird was extinct.

A small population, however, survived in Wales.

Occasionally a stray migrant would turn up in Britain from the Continent only to be shot on sight, as happened to the only 19th century record for the Isle of Wight, when one was killed in September, 1876.

In the 20th century, the RSPB and English Nature (as it was then) started a programme of re-introduction and between 1989 and 1994 kites were brought over from Spain and released in England and Scotland.

In England, the scheme has been spectacularly successful.

Initially started in the Chilterns, there is now something like 4,000 pairs in the country but in Scotland there are only a few; the management of the many shooting estates is to blame where birds of prey are not tolerated.

In Wales the tiny population clung on and almost vanished but helped by conservationists they just survived.

In 1992 in mid Wales, a farmer and his son started leaving rabbits their dog had caught in one of their fields and one day two red kites came down to the carcasses.

This was the start of another success story and with the help of the RSPB this is now an official feeding centre with up to 600 kites a day.

The red kite is best described as a long-winged elegant bird with a distinctive forked tail, making it easy to identify.

Over the last few years it has been seen on the Island regularly and in most months of the year.

Many of them are returning first year immatures from the Continent as the main population is resident in the UK and do not migrate.

It is to be hoped they will eventually establish a breeding population on the Island and become commonplace, as they are on the mainland.