The Red Kite Feeding Centre

We left west wales after a couple of nights and on our return we called into the ‘Red Kite Feeding Centre’ and thought we would share our experience here with other photographers and nature lovers interested in visiting this centre. Nestled in pretty welsh countryside the centre is located in Llanddeusant. A tiny community in the Black Mountain region of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Carmarthenshire, Wales.

Red kite feeding centre

The feeding station was opened in the summer of 2002 with support from the Brecon Beacons National Park and the Welsh Red kite trust. Every day come rain or shine the wild kites are fed at 3pm (BST) and from a large and carefully constructed hide visitors can watch the spectacular display as kites swoop down to feed. Paying just £3 entry for adults (reduced rates for OAP/children) to the hide where you can spend as long as you wish whilst they feed.

Far end of hide

Inside main hide area

If you arrive early there is plenty of space to choose from in which to set up a tripod, within a long hide that provides a number of slightly different vantage points. On our visit there were around 30 visitors in the hide at the peak time of around 3-3:45pm. We were infact very lucky in that the kites fed almost immediately, we were told this is not always the case and so as usual with wildlife patience is key!

View of hides and feeding area

Lenses of 300mm plus would be our recommendation, ideally 400-600mm (based on full frame). The phenomenal speed that they plummeted from above was certainly a huge challenge in attempting to capture images as they swooped. There were certainly plenty of opportunities to get images of them in flight as they soared above the feeding site en mass.

At its peak, around 5-10 minutes after the food was laid out there was a mass of kites! As a bit of a ‘guesstimate’ probably around 35 – 45 in total. It was an impressive sight to see their feeding behaviour at such close proximity as well as plenty of dramatic aerial displays. The site owner told us of incidences in winter of over 150 kites at the feeding site. No doubt that would be an impressive sight to witness. On a couple of occasions in our 2.5 hour visit a buzzard also appeared, but in the frenzy of feeding barely managed much of a look in. With crows and magpies also looking for any food opportunities.