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I think you are lucky but I can understand your point.Re-introduction can cause problems and a balance has to be kept.I do not think that humans should put out meat etc. for raptors but I agree that having a few feeders for the small finches and tits during a hard winter is good.
I hope you do not think that I am some Eco nutter(I do shoot birds) and love nature.

Les: It brought back memories of The Dreaded Gym Class.

Les40 ,re rita,sue and Bob, I hope you are not the Bob type!! Brilliant film though.

Don't think you're any kind of nutter, tony, except maybe tramping 16 miles in one day, which is only envy.
I bought a small wood exactly a year ago to have a place for wildlife. But I am getting to dislike deer.......
People who live near where the kites were introduced say they terrorise their bird tables.

Certainly not tony, but I'm sure I bought my first car off him in 1988.

Rosalind, re. bought a small wood.

That statement sounds so 'matter of fact' from you, the only wood I can stretch to is a small box of matches. However, things will be different when I qualify (I hope)

I would love to go to your wood.I know Oxfordshire pretty well.I expect that the deer you are talking about are Muntjac;they can cause a lot of problems in woodland and are breeding like bunnies.We do cull them for the farmers because they cause so much damage.They taste wonderful BTW.

Rosalind, if you're a kestrel fan this might interest you.

as you probably know kestrels live largely on voles which they hunt in the daytime. but voles are themselves largely nocturnal. so what's actually going on. the voles sleep most of the day but every so often go out and spray their runs in the grass/bank whatever to mark their territory. to the kestrel the urine has some sort of day-glow phlorescence that it can clearly see. so while the vole is relieving itself the kestrel knows exactly where it is and bingo, vole in the hole for lunch. well I thought that was interesting.

Phillip, Am I right in thinking voles live near water, I remember when I was a kid living near a wide expanse of farmland, we always saw voles round and about the irrigation ditches

phillip,that is a brilliant piece of information that I had never heard of.
On the Estate where I go ,beating and working,we often see kestrels hovering for ages during the day,they then dive down to the ground as if they have caught something but have not and then continue hovering?

No Les40 they are water voles as in "ratty" in the "Tales of the river bank"
Water voles look like a small rat with a snub nose,they are increasingly rare,although we do see the occasional one on the estate.
The voles that kestrels catch are just like field mice.