KITE

14th April 2024

Photo Credit: Denja1 (Getty Images), CANVA

QUOTATION

Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where’s your knife?

Is Beaufort termed a kite? Where are his talons?

QUEEN MARGARET: Henry VI, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2

KITE (RED KITE: Milvus milvus)

Shakespeare uses imagery associated with the Kite on several occasions, usually in a negative or aggressive context. King Lear calls his daughter Goneril ‘a detested kite’ and Macduff calls Macbeth ‘ a hell-kite’ after he kills his family. Kite imagery is used in the Henry VI plays to describe rapacious and untrustworthy behaviour.

Pliny in his Natural Histories of the first century C.E. writes ‘these birds seem to have taught man the art of steering from the motion of the tail, Nature pointing out by their movements in the air the method required for navigating the deep.’ William Turner writing in 1568 describes his knowledge of Kites in England: ‘the greater is in colour nearly rufous, and in England is abundant and remarkably rapacious. This kind is wont to snatch food out of children’s hands in our cities and towns. The other kind is smaller, blacker and rarely haunts cities. This I do not remember to have seen in England, but in Germany most frequently.’

Red Kites were persecuted almost to extinction in the UK by the 20th century. A series of reintroductions and targeted conservation programmes have re-established Red Kite populations in several parts of the UK.

More Information

Argaty Red Kites: Visit Site

BTO: Red Kite

Folger Shakespeare: Search Shakespeare’s Works

Pliny Natural Histories, Book 10, Chapter 12 (accessed via Perseus Digital Library)

RSPB: Red Kite

Turner, W. 1568 On Birds (translated by Evans A.H. 1903, accessed via Archive.org)