A wildlife charity in Leatherhead have shared how they saved a Red Kite and released it back into the Surrey countryside last week.

The bird was found in Woldingham on Friday (January 17) by a resident who found it laying on the ground and unable to get back on the wing.

He promptly called in Leatherhead's Wildlife Aid Foundation (WAF) who took the bird in and determined how best to look after it.

WAF's Nick Harding said:

"When they picked it up it was dark at it was better to check everything over at the hospital overnight and everything seemed to be fine.

"They tested it in the aviary to make sure it could fly, which it could, so it was taken back to the same place it was found in and released."

Surrey Comet: WAFWAF

WAF's volunteers and vets support Surrey's wildlife and take in and protect as many vulnerable animals as they have room for on a given day.

"If it's safe and they know the area then we will release animals back into the wild," Harding said regarding WAF's policy on releasing cared-for animals.

Dealing with Red Kites specifically is a learning curve for WAF as they've only been present in Surrey for a few years having previously faced extinction.

Surrey Comet: WAFWAF

"Red Kites have only been here in Surrey for around five years.

"There doing so well now because they were persecuted before and they are not being anymore," Harding explained.

Red Kites are opportunistic hunters and scavengers, and were protected in medieval times because they helped keep streets clean.

Killing a kite even carried the death penalty at one point, but subsequent generations came to regard them as pests.

During the 20th century their population was reduced to just a handful of breeding pairs in the UK.

Thanks to conservation efforts their numbers have since rebounded.

Red Kites are now considered as "Near Threatened" by the globally recognized International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Surrey Comet: WAFWAF