Bedfordshire Police and the RSPB are appealing for information following the discovery of shot red kite in Bedfordshire.
A member of the public found the kite’s corpse at Daintry Wood near Toddington (unfortunately no date has been provided. UPDATE: corpse found 27 Feb 2017) and it was sent to ZSL for a post mortem where an x-ray revealed 10 pieces of lead shot lodged in its body, indicating it had probably been shot at close range.
Anyone with information is asked to call Bedfordshire Police on 101.
RSPB press release here
Raptor Persecution UK 
Close range… Could this mean it was lured in? No accusations, just curiosity.
If its in a wood in February, it would be far more likely to be when its coming in to roost or even roosted in my opinion.
Yes – think so too …… have actually been less than 10m from one before I realised …..
As is stated in two previous above comments, either lured in and shot or shot while roosting; however ranks will close and no person will have seen anything..
Chris, there is every possibility that many in the shooting industry will deny the bird was shot. Won’t be the first time, and certainly won’t be the last.
Ah yes, the old pressing lead shot into the corpse trick again…
They will probably deny it’s lead shot as well. They also have history on that issue.
Read some of the comments on previous blogs, you will see shooting at roost is a favourite tactic of woodland keepers
They are taking them out with night vision equipment.
Shooting at roosts is a norm for driven grouse moor keepers.
There is of course no way you could mistake a kite for any legitimate target…especially at close range…it should be obvious by now that there are some people deliberately killing kites – some pathetic poke in the eye to conservationists for trying to interfere with their sad little hobbies…