Red kite stole my hummus

A MAN has told how a red kite snatched bread and hummus from his hand that he was having for lunch.

Geof Haigh, 72, was sitting on a bench under a veranda in his garden at home in Whitehills Green, Goring, when the bird swooped.

Its long, sharp talons caused a two-inch scratch to Mr Haigh’s hand and brushed the face of Gail, his wife, with its angled wings as it dived down.

This was the third time in five years that a red kite has snatched food from him while he was eating outside.

In the latest incident, Mr Haigh had just taken a piece of bread which he had dipped into a pot of hummus when the bird flew under the veranda, took the bread and made off through a gap in a nearby boundary fence.

Mr Haigh said: “I was putting the food into my mouth and it grabbed it and the feathers of its wings brushed my wife’s face. It wasn’t painful, but it was surprising — it was like a feather duster. I had a small scratch but a week later and it’s pretty much healed now.

“The back door is under a roofed patio, so in order to get this, it had to fly down, grab the food from my hand and go under the fence and over the hedge. Why he wanted bread and hummus, I could not imagine.”

Mr Haigh said he doesn’t feel threatened, despite this being the third incident of food being stolen from the couple in their garden in five years.

He said: “Three years ago in summer, we had around 14 people outside around a table under the tree during a summer party and a red kite stole sausages from a table.

“Five years ago, I was eating some bacon near the trees and it took a piece from my fork. The second was the most surprising because people were sitting there but it would be more worrying if we had kids out there in the garden.”

Mr Haigh said that he is more wary of red kites now, which have reddish-brown bodies.

He said: “They have a constant presence over the garden, but they don’t have much to go for usually.

“The worry is that they will learn from each other and it will be more common but I’m observant and more careful now and look out to see if we can see it or hear it flying around.”

Mrs Haigh said: “It brushed my face as I was sitting next to Geof but luckily I wasn’t putting any food in my mouth at the time. The next thing I saw was that it had gone and taken a piece of bread.

“I couldn’t believe it fit under the veranda and flew out but it’s not uncommon to happen around here.” There have been a number of similar incidents in the Henley area over the years.

In November 2023, Elizabeth Landen had her sandwich snatched out of her hand by a red kite while she sat near the bandstand in Mill Meadows, Henley.

In the May of the that year, a three-year-old boy had a croissant taken from him by a red kite outside Gail’s café in Market Place.

In August 2022, a man was picnicking with his family in Mill Meadows when a large red kite swooped down and snatched some pizza from his hand.

He was left with small cuts and scratches on his right shoulder, which drew blood.

The Chilterns Conservation Board has said that since red kites were introduced to the Chilterns more than 30 years ago, the population has risen dramatically.

In the early years the birds were very wary of people but over the years more and more people have encouraged them into their gardens with food. Herre de Bondt, 30, an anthropologist and a PhD student at the University of Roehampton in London, said red kites can learn and adapt to where food is available.

He said: “Red kites are quite opportunistic scavengers and birds of prey, but they tend not to hunt as much, so when they see human food available, they swoop down and try to steal it.

“If they learn that food is available in certain spots, they tend to learn and adapt.

“With Mr Haigh’s incident, it could be the same bird as previously, but it wouldn’t make sense for the bird to spend that much energy checking the same garden if food is available over five years, as it has only been successful three times.”

Mr de Bondt added: “There have been more and more messages about this happening, but it’s mostly because of their reintroduction in the Nineties and the success they are having.”