A RECORD of the flight of a giant red kite around top landscape locations in the North East was unveiled yesterday.
Newcastle wildlife photographer Kaleel Zibe documented the efforts of volunteers from Friends of Red Kites (FoRK) who assembled the 22-metre wingspan image of the bird at landmark areas in the region.
The red kite mosaic used 150 tiles produced by Chromazone, a company based in the Team Valley, Gateshead, from a design created by local artist and FoRK volunteer Alan Hart. An exhibition based on the venture was launched yesterday at Gateshead Civic Centre by council leader Mick Henry and will now tour venues across the North East.
The project was backed by a £7,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and celebrates the successful re-introduction of red kites in the Derwent Valley in Gateshead. Another aim is to spread the word about, and involve people in, the continued success of the red kite population.
What were billed as “community heritage happenings” at which the giant kite was assembled were staged at the National Trust’s Gibside estate and land near the Nine Arches viaduct in the Derwent Valley, Marsden Rock on the South Shields coast, Sunderland Glass Centre, the Wearmouth Bridges riverside, Penshaw Monument, Baltic Square in Gateshead, Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, the Angel of the North, Durham Cathedral, St Mary’s Island at Whitley Bay and Hadrian’s Wall.
The timetable for versions of the exhibition is Gateshead Civic Centre until April 3; Blackhall Mill community centre, April 4-30; Whickham Library, April 4-30; Thornley Woodlands Centre, Rowlands Gill, May 5-12 and 25-30; St Mary’s Church, Ponteland, May 14-22; Morpeth Library, May, 14-31; South Shields Museum, June 8-31; South Shields Customs House, August 6-28; Wallsend community centre, September 3-24; The Nest, Barnard Castle, September 27-November 3; Durham City Botanic Gardens, November 5-29; Hexham General Hospital, November 5-29.
Keith Bowey, of Glead Ecological and Environmental Services, who is the project co-ordinator, said: “We wanted to display the red kite in these outstanding landscape settings.
“The message is that we can’t have great wildlife without a great landscape in which to host it and the landscape would not be so good without wildlife like the red kites.”
Kaleel Zibe, whose Kaleel Zibe Photography business is based at Dissington Hall, Ponteland, said: “Assembling a 22-metre wide red kite is not something you see every day and at the locations a lot of people became involved and asked us what we were doing and about the red kites.”
