Are you from the area? What got you interested in the birds?

Yes, yes, born and bred here. It was only after coming to the site here. Everybody who lives in the country has an interest in nature, but never that much, if you know what I mean? Its only when we came here and got involved with people like Dee Doody and Tony Cross from the Kite trust, and after seeing their absolute enthusiasm for the birds, it gets you. You seem to get the same, to the point where, people find me very boring sometimes! [laughs].

You can talks for hours about them and people are thinking 'here he is again'. But the strange thing is, how people get to know you. We were in the NEC not long ago, I took the kids up, to a concert or something there, which I didn't attend, and I was standing out in the foyer of the NEC and two ladies some fifty yards away from me, whispering to themselves and looking over and pointing, and eventually one of them came over and said 'are you the man who feeds the...' and I said 'yes, I am' [laughs].

Why did you start the feeding?

Well, what started it off was when we had the old centre we were filming live nests so of course when we moved over to this site we didn't have the facilities to do the filming. So the idea was that we bring the kite to the people rather than going filming and chasing the kite, that's what really started it off.

We started about June/July about nine years ago, so 1999? And of course the thing is, there is no written guidelines or rules about how you start a kite feeding station. We worked closely with the Kite Trust, as it was then, Kite Country, the Ministry of Agriculture, then because Defra hadn't been formed, the local authority, theh RSPB, local farmers, the police because we are so close to the road, they really didn't know whether it was a good idea because you get these...rubbernecks as they call them [laughs] who stop by the side of the road and look around...and whoops, there's a kite!

It took us till the December to set it up and for months and months, if we had four kites on the site to eat, we'd throw a party it was that good! And for the first winter it didn't get more than half a dozen. We did it for several reasons really: to create awareness at the time of the plight of the kite, to try and stop the persecution, obviously to feed them over the winter, they were losing a lot of young birds because the winter comes early up here and if the young bird by about October hasn't learnt to fend for himself, he's out of it really so it was something to feed the young birds with over the winter, and then, probably, to bring the breeding birds into their breeding season a lot stronger by giving them extra over the winter.

What's happened in the area is, as you can see outside, all the farmers have improved the hillsides nowadays they don't keep the stock of sheep that they used to so there isn't the fallen stock and the carrion for them to eat, really. So their food supplies are certainly getting short, they have closed the open refuse tips where they would have rummaged and scavenged for food, all they've got on the hillsides now is their basics of worms and slugs.

So it was then to give them this something extra for the winter. So we ran the project until the end of March and we stopped feeding then until the following October and then started again. But we found the same problem and had to build it all back up again. Probably by about March we'd got up to about 20 birds, and so it was a party everyday! [laughs]

And what happened was, you'll laugh at this, the press releases and the leaflets put out from Kite Country said 'the birds were fed here daily' full stop, not 'daily in the winter'. So two or three days after we stopped feeding people were turning up and saying 'why aren't you feeding the kites?' 'its says on your leaflet..." so of course this is the reason we've carried it on throughout the year, then.

And, believe it or not, its probably as important for them in summer, if you've got a dry hot summer, the ground goes hard so they can't get the worms out. So they are equally as hungry in the summer as they are in the winter.

The other reason is, its somewhere for them to socialise, its like going to school! Its important for them to come here, to pass information, from one generation to another really. Those are the main reasons we set the project up. We never mention doing it to bring lots of people here to eat our food and so on! No, no we never mention that! But it certainly has benefited everybody in the area really. There are huge numbers of people who come here simply to see the birds.

We've now, probably got five/six hundred breeding pairs in Wales, from the two that they keep telling us in the 1960s. Most people who come here have seen kites, they've released them in other areas of the country, down in the Thames Valley and wherever, wherever, but few people have seen them in the numbers we get them here, feeding together. It varies, at this time we've got low numbers because the breeding pairs are on the nest so it can go down to as low as fifty a day and equally, when the young come back out in the Autumn and throughout the winter we can go up to two hundred a day.

What's it like feeding them?

Scary. I've probably done it, what, three/four thousand times, and its still a different experience every day. I've had a few close shaves. We cut the pieces of meat small so they can pick them up with their claws and feed on the wing, rather than cutting them large where they would have to retire to the trees to eat mainly to keep the birds out so they are visible to the public.

They pick it up off the ground, they come down, talons out, there have been a couple of close shaves, I can tell you about torn shirts and so on where they have come too close, not deliberately, obviously. I honestly believe now, that they know, know my tone of voice, yes, I do talk to them!

People must think I'm absolutely crazy, I whistle to them, I call to them,... they probably know my walk and everything. What draws them down is, they've always been fed from a big white bucket and as soon as they see the bucket anywhere on the site, the might not be a bird in the sky, and all of a sudden they'll just come from absolutely nowhere, no idea where they've come from, and they'll follow the bucket to the feeding area, its an amazing sight.

A day that really stands out was, about two or three years ago, a kite came down and landed with its claws on my chest [laughs] looked me in the eye, sort of pushed itself away from me, and, spun in the air, and took off. Its absolutely amazing, I mean you are looking at a bird with a five foot, five foot six wingspan... I dropped the bucket! I've no idea why it did it, it just came down very very gently and put his claws here on my chest and I thought, oh no, what are you going to do to me! But it just pushed back, spun and flew back up again.

Unfortunately, on those days, there is never anybody here with a camera to catch it for you!

The other thing is we've got these white leucistic kites here, that unfortunately don't come out this time of year, during the breeding season. But there are two on the site, or shall we say two that feed on the site, One have them has probably been here for about seven years, and there was another one that joined about two years later so they seem to be a huge attraction. We don't really know, there could be four or five in the whole of the country I suppose, absolutely amazing birds they are. Trouble is, you can never guarantee here so people will keep returning several times a year just to try and catch a site of this white one.

We've had as well, joining us on several occasions, foxes. Foxes coming out of the woods and feeding with the birds on site. There was a clip of them on television the other night, on Iolo Williams' programme. Especially now with the ban on hunting in the last few years, foxes are getting more, well, domesticated shall we say, they are certainly not as scared of humans as they used to be. A great sight, really.

What do your family think of your kite feeding?

Yes, well, what people don't realise is, and this is why you find that in some voluntary kite feeding places, they either give up or its quite inconsistent, it is a huge commitment. Its got to be done, and of course, if we ever do leave the site then you've got to guarantee that whoever comes here has to keep going with it.

You can never tell, what sort of effect it would have on them, whether they would cope without it. Hopefully they would, because the idea is that they don't become dependent on it, its only meant to be a supplement.

What we say here, Joe, the RSPB guy says, its like having a bar of kit kat, but you only give them the one finger to tempt them [laughs] and they go and get the rest, yes. Its not meant to be a total package for them, it's a supplement.

We collect our meat from a local butcher who has a, cutting plant, really, about fifteen miles from here. So we try and collect it most days, in small quantities so you can put it straight out. The meat, is mainly beef, lamb, little cuts that are not waste, but more, by products and so on, you try and keep it-especially this time of year-lean.

In the winter we do give them a little bit of suet to supplement their food, it's the easiest way of getting protein into them. They eat, I don't know, about 20 kilos a day, I suppose? There's no need to give them anymore than that really, it gives them a couple of pieces each, and quality wise you're looking at meat you might get in your burgers I suppose, not the best I suppose but edible for humans, you want a bit of grease for your stew, that's the one to put in! [laughs]

And of course, because they are such a large bird, with a big wingspan but only a small bodyweight-you're only looking at two, two and a half pounds up to a kilo in weight-flight is effortless and so easy to them so they don't need an awful lot of energy to stay up in the air.

You'll find that if the weather isn't a hundred percent favourable in the winter your feeding numbers might drop for two, three or four days while they sit up and roost, they can go easily up to three days without feeding. Though goodness help you on the fourth day! [laughs] Then they're like hooligans!

When was your last holiday?

We don't have holidays, no! It is a huge commitment because the meat that we feed them, raw meat obviously, has to be fit for human consumption, especially after the foot and mouth scare a few years ago. We now have licenses to be a final user of meat products, we need a license to transport meat, it's a bit of a nightmare really but then it has to be done.

We have fridges and freezers at home and we always have a fair stock, in case something goes wrong or whatever, whatever. So you're looking at an hour's worth of collecting and then you have to cut it all up, reasonably small, and with the feeding, its easily two, three hours a day, and of course when you are coming back around the lake if you get stopped by one person you get stopped by fifty people!

So yes, it takes over your complete life, its not a job or anything it's a way of life, you know, you've got to live this thing.

Would you change your life?

No, not now, no. Its never been a chore, mainly because, well, you don't do it for a financial reward, what you do it for is when I'm the other side of the lake and there are sometimes hundreds of people on the other side in the viewing area, its that initial 'wow', the gasp from the crowd on the other side, that's what its all about really.

Does your wife mind?

[Laughs] No, not really, we have on occasions gone home and thought well, what shall we have for tea tonight? And you have a garage full of fridges and freezers and you open them and no, just full of kite food, open the next one and again its no, kite food. Its coming out of our ears! Frequently I think what on earth am I doing?

In the middle of January sometimes, when there is about six inches of snow on the ground and there isn't a soul on the site and you're trudging with this bucket and you think, what am I doing? We only close one day a year, Christmas Day, and of course the birds still have to be fed, you've got to be here.

And its surprising how many people come to see the birds on Christmas Day. I remember one year I was a few minutes late and there were people there saying 'where have you been? Its ten past two!'"

Interview with Ceredig Morgan