Greggs sausage roll captured by bird of prey in Oxfordshire

Mark Hopkins snapped the hungry red kite while he was enjoying the warm weather over the weekend.

He was taking pictures in his garden in Ruscote, in Banbury, when the giant kite soared over head.

A red kite with a sausage roll in its talons in the skies above Ruscote (Image: Mark Hopkins)

A red kite with a sausage roll in its talons in the skies above Ruscote (Image: Mark Hopkins)

A red kite with a sausage roll in its talons in the skies above Ruscote (Image: Mark Hopkins)

Several shots captured the bird carrying away what appeared to be a fresh sausage roll in its giant claws.

The 57-year-old welder said: “There are often kites flying over us but I’ve never seen this before.

“There was one huge red kite that banked up in front of me and it was clearly holding something in its talons.

“I wasn’t sure what it was at first but looking at the pictures on my camera it was obvious it was a sausage roll.

“Whether it had snatched it out of someone’s hand or picked it up off the floor I don’t know but it did look fresh.

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“It was a remarkable thing to see and I’m just so happy I had my camera ready at the right time.”

There are an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 breeding pairs of red kites in the UK with increasing numbers living in urban areas.

A spokesperson for Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust said: “Once considered a threat to game birds and domestic animals like cats and dogs, the red kite was hunted close to extinction in the UK.

“Now a protected species – and following several reintroduction attempts, the number of red kites has recovered and they can be spotted in lots of places across the UK.

“Rather than purely hunting for food, red kites are in fact largely scavengers, so mainly like to eat scraps and small prey like rabbits. Listen out for their ‘mewing’ calls.”