Parks | Harewood Estate

Birder watchers' paradise

	Harewood Estate is famously known as home to the Queen's cousin, the Earl of Harewood. Set in beautiful grounds, including formal gardens and areas of natural woodland, one of Harewood's main attractions is the Bird Garden and its Red Kites.
Harewood's stunning terrace

The Bird Garden houses one of the country's top avian collections, with over 100 species of threatened and exotic birds housed there, including ostriches, parrots, flamingos, owls, and a popular penguin pool.

Red Kites

Harewood Estate is one of the best places in Yorkshire to see the once-extinct Red Kite, which, until just a few years ago, could only be seen in a handful of remote areas in Wales.

The Red Kites love the landscape around Harewood with its woodlands for nesting, thermals for floating and hovering, and plentiful carrion to feed on.

Twenty one young red kites were released into the wild on the Harewood Estate in summer 1999 as part of a reintroduction programme, and now the Estate is one of the top British sites to see the birds of prey.

Breeding birds

The Bird Garden is also an active member of the Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Ireland.

With species from the African Grasslands, Indochina and Central and South America, the garden houses a menagerie of rare birds.

Amongst the birds are the curiously named Luzon Bleeding Heart Dove, so-called because of the patch of red on its breast, and the Yellow-Throated, Red-Winged and Spotted Laughing Thrushes, whose names relate to the unusual sound of their calls.

The estate participates in various captive breeding schemes to ensure the conservation of many rare species of birds.

Harewood is a joint conservation scheme between the RSPB, English Nature and Yorkshire Water.

Photos courtesy of Harewood Estate.

• Access to location
• Hands on Nature activities