h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Red Kite - A994188
Author: Graham - U221320

This is my first attempt to write something for the guide - actually I have no idea if it's good enough or not, or even if I'm doing the right thing here - but hey-ho, give it a go!

They are truly magnificent birds. Last summer I was sitting halfway up a mountain in Wales (I'm like that) and a red kite was slowly circling, clearly near to a nest. I moved a few yards away and she stopped circling, and sat for a couple of hours just watching me...

Red kites were reintroduced in Yorkshire about two years ago and now are a common sight at (among other areas) Eccup reservoir. There have been reports of deaths due to poisoning, although it appears that most of these have been due to the kites eating dead rats which, in turn, had been poisoned by ground bait.

The Yorkshire kites are now in their their third generation.

If you'd like more information, leave me a message.

Cati Bach

Lamb killers!!! Ptui !!!
The attitude of farmers has so often been -- * If it moves , shoot it ; if it stands still , cut it down * This has been especially so in Australia where for example the wedgetail eagle , a magnificent bird , has been the subject of many a shooting spree because it too has been accused of lamb killing . I have seen pictures of gun proud landowners standing by fences to which have been nailed the bodies of several of these magnificent birds

To counterbalance this , I also have a vivid memory of watching one swoop down and fly off with a very large snake dangling and writhing below it .

Congratulations to any organization that moves to preserve the lovely creatures

Hi Graham, this is a good first entry to Peer Review, the only problem is that Edited Guide Entries need to be in the third person. But it's certainly a interesting topic for a guide entry! Do keep at it and give it a bit of a re write!


See you soon!

Hi Graham,

I agree with Z, this is a good entry with a lot of potential. But as stated, it should be in the third person. If you were to put the first paragraph in quotes as a preamble and remove the first person references in the rest, I think it would be a good candidate for the Edit Guide.

To put it into quotes using GuideML use the following code:




Your paragraph




The will also make it into italics. Makes it look nice.


Stuart

Red Kites are great birds, I saw lots of them from the Aberystwyth-Lampeter bus. I also saw one once from the Oxford-Reading train. Apparently they used to be quite common in towns and cities in the middle ages when they were protected as it was felt they did an important job cleaning up any meat left around. I hope they recover and return to towns, it would be great sight to see them flying around Oxford's spires.

and your entry. Fine. Some more detail would be nice if you can find out some more, but basically okay

Great birds and a nice topic for a Guide Entry- I liked reading your existing entry. You obviously have great enthusiasm for these birds. I agree with the others above, work it around a bit so its not in the first person. How about including a few more intersting facts about behaviour, like their habit of carrying off items of washing etc?

Just popped in to say I concur with the above. This has the makings of a damn fine entry

Thanks for the good feedback everyone - I'll give it a reworking when I get a spare hour or so. I'm having a few troubles getting around the site, probably just lack of familiarity, so bear with me!

Some fine pics too

TSF

Graham,

I got a broken link when I tried to click on it. Could be that the site was down when I tried.

I agree with the comments above.

Let us know when you have made amendments; in its present form it doesn't meet the Writing-Guidelines, but with a little re-writing, it would.

I liked it Graham (a lot) - some small suggestions -

1) (Milvus Milvus) should come straight after "Red Kite", not after "bird of prey"

2) maybe its just me, but I thought that "small prey" would really be small - ie. mice, shrews, sparrows, the like. Gulls and crows might be a bit too big. Maybe you should just call it "live prey".

Other than that, the only thing holding you back is to make some small adjustments to rid it of the first person "I"/"me"/"my", and to make it more encyclopaedic. The amount of work involved I think may be only 10 minutes - and then, you are on your way to an Edited Guide Entry, I think.



Woodpigeon

Is this entry finished now, Graham?

Nope.

I thought it didn't seem quite to have incorporated the suggestions people have made.

Graham isn't MIA, he's just a very infrequent visitor. So there is no scope for moving this to the FM.

I do hope he can come back and incorporate the thoughts in this thread as the basic entry is very good. I for one, would love to see an entry about the Red Kite in the Guide.

Any chance of a nudge?

Graham hasn't posted for three weeks... I hope he comes back to do some more work on this entry - it's got potential

*nudge*

This entry could be FM bound if Graham doesn't come back and pick up the baton.

Seconders?