Where have all these Red Kites come from?

[werdnal]

Living in Cornwall all my 45 years, I have never seen a red kite here. We get loads of buzzards, but I didn't think we even had kites down here.

I recently started following a local birding blog, and check in every couple of days to find what the latest local sightings are. Over the last few days, there have been dozens of sightings of kites, all over the county! Some stating large numbers of birds at one time. Where have they all come from, and why suddenly so many?

You can see the sighting reports here:

BIRD REPORTS – Recent Sightings

Any ideas please?

[Za]

That does seem to be an awful lot of Kites to appear all of a sudden! Maybe they read in the papers about the woman that wants to cull them

Za

[nigel_b]

Same in Dorset, new reports almost every day.

[werdnal]

I know some of them could be duplicate sightings in the same area, but several reports are counting flocks in the teens and twenties in number. I can't understand it!