Talons at noon as red kite pair topple the spare

Sandy Bedfordshire In an aerial tussle one raptor attacked from above until its opponent dropped so low it was groundedBy lunchtime the skies over rural Bedfordshire had become an arrivals and departures board. Thin white slashes criss-crossing the blue trailed over the horizon towards Barcelona, Rome and Salzburg. The 11.25 to Katowice had dissipated into a wispy smudge. Then, an intense arrowhead, like a cursor on a computer screen, might have been the 12.20 from Barcelona entering our airspac