Their scavenging nature makes them particularly vulnerable to accidental secondary poisoning, where they scavenge the carcass of an animal that has been poisoned and succumb to the poison themselves. In reality, they will only take small live prey as well as dead animals, and will rob other birds. Rumours spread amongst the farming community that they were capable of killing sheep, as they were often found scavenging off animal carcasses. In the Middle Ages, Red Kites were much more widespread, their scavenging habits making them the refuse collectors of the day, but their numbers have much decreased through illegal persecution and poisoning. These differences hold throughout most of the first year of a bird’s life. Juveniles have pale tips to all of the greater-coverts (secondary and primary) on both the upper- and under-wings, forming a long narrow pale line adults have pale fringes to upperwing secondary-coverts only.Juveniles have a less deeply-forked tail, with a dark subterminal band.Adults have black breast-streaks whereas on juveniles these are pale.
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