Wales Red Kite locations in Wales

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Glynn
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Hi everyone, I'm visiting the UK in MAY and looking for some advice on the best place to photograph Red Kites in Wales. - I'll have my Nikon D500/Nikon 200-500, Tripod etc with me.

I've looked online and found a few places (Bwlch Nant yr Arian, Llanddeusant and Rhayader), but does anyone have experience of these locations, especially the hides that are available?

I'm not really a cheapskate (and happy to pay, to get the best locations) but do I need to pay £45.00 to use a hide, when equall shots can be had at other locations?

I'll also have my own 'pop-up' hide with me, if it can be utilised anywhere else?

Any help/advice would be very much appreciated!

Cheers

Glynn
 
There are opportunities to find Red Kites for yourself but you will be hard pressed to get better photo-opportunities than at Gigrin Farm ( https://www.gigrin.co.uk/ ). A variety of different hides at various heights and a guarantee to have 100's of birds to photograph over a period of several hours.
 
Gigrin (rhayader) and nant y Arian are both good locations but offer different shots.

Gigrin gives you the raised shooting platforms and decent light angles with more birds, whilst at nant y Arian if its bright you'll have side lighting but the birds can come closer and in my opinion if you have flat light the backgrounds are better. At nant you need to be in the hide on the far side of the lake 30 mins before feeding to secure a good shooting position.

That said, if you're anywhere near harewood just north of Leeds there is a place you can do a feed yourself and have the (admittedly fewer) birds swooping a few feet above your head.

You'll have excellent opportunities at all 3 sites I mentioned though

Mike
 
I also visited Gigrin Farm in 2017, and also visited the Elan Valley and had a look around the reservoir there. I didn't really understand until I got there how Gigrin worked - I thought we were just going to a place where Red Kites assemble and feed, in fact it's an organised "feeding frenzy" where a load of food is put out at a set time. You could see a lot of birds assembling ready for the tractor to arrive, they obviously have this in their diaries. I was expecting to get a long lens and search for individual birds, I wasn't expecting quite this many birds all together:

procIMGP9384.jpg

I think the only thing I had trouble with was the relatively low top to the window in the viewing huts, but because I was one of the last in the hut I think I was at a wheelchair position - this had a lower sill, but a correspondingly lower top to the opening, which led to me catching it in view several times. After a short while I went outside, though, so that wasn't a problem.

I did very much enjoy the trip, even as a non-bird-photographer. I'd probably do it again, or maybe try somewhere else for a bit of variety. The nearby Elan Valley is also somewhere I'd like to have another look around.
 
It will be the breeding season when you visit so numbers will be lower than in winter. I know Bwlch Nant-yr-arian quite well but have never had much joy photographing them. From the hide on the other side of the lake they are so close and move so quickly that you need lightning fast reflexes to capture them. Most people seem to stay on the opposite side of the lake to give themselves the time and space to take pictures of individual birds witha longer lens. You won't need a pop-up hide, they are so used to people.

You only pay for parking at B N-y-R.
 
jerry12953 said:
It will be the breeding season when you visit so numbers will be lower than in winter. I know Bwlch Nant-yr-arian quite well but have never had much joy photographing them. From the hide on the other side of the lake they are so close and move so quickly that you need lightning fast reflexes to capture them. Most people seem to stay on the opposite side of the lake to give themselves the time and space to take pictures of individual birds witha longer lens. You won't need a pop-up hide, they are so used to people.

You only pay for parking at B N-y-R.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information Jeremy.

Sadly, we will only be back in the UK for a couple of days, so unable to spend more time in your location. Having visited your website and now read some of your blogs, we will have to make more time in the future!

Cheers
Glynn

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