Milane Lower Austria

Kites can be recognised from a great distance by their long, angled wings and deeply forked tail. The red kite, with its rust-red plumage and pale head, is a characteristic bird of open mosaic landscapes of fields, meadows, hedges and small woodlands. The slightly smaller and darker black kite prefers water-rich habitats, floodplain forests, lake shores and slow-flowing rivers, but can also breed in drier farmland where prey and nest sites are available. Both species are long-distance migrants wintering in southern Europe and Africa, although a growing share of red kites now winter in Spain and France.

Germany holds about 55 percent of the global red kite breeding population, making it the species' main breeding range worldwide and giving the country a particular national responsibility. The Federal Agency for Nature Conservation lists the red kite as a species of high national responsibility. Both kite species are listed in Annex I of the EU Birds Directive and are classified under Section 7 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act as both specially and strictly protected. The Federal Hunting Act formally lists them as game species, yet without exception they are subject to a year-round closed season. Catching, injuring or killing a kite is a criminal offence under Section 38 of the Federal Hunting Act.

The most significant human-caused conflict today is the expansion of wind energy. The red kite is among the most frequent collision victims at wind turbines, because it actively searches the short-mown ground under turbine towers for voles and shows little avoidance behaviour. Other major threats are illegal poison baits, road traffic, electrocution on medium-voltage pylons and the loss of extensively farmed mosaic landscapes. For hunters, kites are not a quarry species but fellow inhabitants of the hunting ground. Their nest trees enjoy a protective buffer zone, and recording kite territories is a normal part of stewardship in the revier.