A house-hunting trip resulted in a Shropshire couple having a magnificent talking-point in their new home.
Taking pride of place in James and Sarah Forsey’s home in Llanyblodwel, near Oswestry, is a mounted red kite, wings outstretched as if about to take flight.
The impressive bird is the work of Llangollen taxidermist Doug Coates, who described it as “a superb specimen”.
The Forseys, who were living in Northumberland at the time, were house-hunting in the Bishop's Castle area and were driving along a country lane when a van overtook them.
A little further along they noticed something on the roadside verge and their six-year-old son William said he thought it was a bird. It was, in fact, an adult kite.
“It was dead but still warm and so we thought it might have been dealt a glancing blow by the van,” said Mr Forsey, a retired consultant gynaecologist.
“There was a rabbit nearby so the kite may have landed to catch the rabbit,” he said.
“It was a beautiful thing and I thought it would be a shame not to have it preserved.
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“We have rescued some small birds in the past and Sarah has brought some back to life, but nothing like this.
”Having visited Llangollen several times they knew of Doug Coates’ Riverside Taxidermy so drove there with the bird the same day and commissioned him touse his skill, gained over 40 years’ experience.
“Doug has done a wonderful job of it,” James added.
“I am increasingly asked to work on kites these days but this was in perfect condition. It’s a female, which is slightly larger than the male,” said Doug, 72, whose interest in taxidermy began when he was a young boy.
A founder member of the Guild of Taxidermists, he is self-taught and has worked on a huge range of creatures, from tiny birds to bears and lions.
“These days I only work part-time and I am brought a lot of fish,” he said.
Though he still accepts individual commissions much of his work is for museums and zoos.
At one stage red kites were almost extinct but following a long-running protection there are now an estimated 4,600 pairs in the United Kingdom.
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