Travelling up through Dumfreishire last month we stopped in the picturesque town of Thornhill, for a break from driving. We were sitting in the street, enjoying an ice cream and the view, when I noticed a pair of Kites in the sky high overhead and at the top end of the street. There is a memorial column in the center of the street at a crossroads and 4x4 driver had made a pig's ear of the traffic by not allowing an HGV enough room to to get around the memorial, so my attention was diverted from the 2 birds in the sky.
Suddenly remembering the 2 birds, I snapped my glance back up and the one bird was directly overhead. It was between the sun, but as it banked away it remained rather dark too dark in its markings. I see Red Kites often and in that movement I would have expected too see the rufus flash of the normal kite sighting, returning to my ice cream and the drama of some fool driver, with a car too big for their mental capacity forcing a professional heavy goods driver to use all his skills to not obliterate a piece of national heritage, I forgot that momentary thought.
Did I see a Black Kite?
