UK red kites aid Spanish cousins

Nearly four decades ago, red kites were extinct in England and Scotland with just a few pairs left in Wales.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, red kite chicks from Spain and Sweden were released in the Chilterns on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border.

It proved so successful that the species is now thriving across the UK, with estimates of more than 6,000 mating pairs or about 15% of the world's population.

British-born red kite chicks have now been taken to south west Spain as part of a four-year project to revive the population there from the brink of extinction.