A FARMER who is closely linked to the recovery of the red kite is set to appear on a new Welsh nature documentary tonight (Thursday).

Chris Powell of Gigrin Farm in Rhayader will feature along with the iconic bird of prey, which is associated with Wales, on episode four of the Wales: Land of the Wild series, which is narrated by Welsh actor Michael Sheen and produced by BBC Wales.

The farm on South Street is an established feeding station for red kites which were thought to be almost extinct in the 1970s with only a few breeding pairs left in mid Wales.

However the 60-year-old has said it was “purely by chance” and thanks to his beloved spaniel around 30 years ago that he played a role in saving them.

He said: “My father and I used to feed the sheep and our dog used to catch rabbits and we’d leave them out for the ravens.

“Over time we saw two red kites bobbing around. We saw them appearing up on the bank. The dog was quite good at catching rabbits in the hedgerows so we started leaving them out more often. ”

After the first winter, there were six red kites who regularly visited the farm for the rabbits.

He said: “The RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) heard what we were doing and they asked us for an urgent meeting.

“I actually thought we were in trouble at first because they’re a protected bird but the RSPB deputy came to see us and asked if we would become an official feeding station.”

Eventually, Chris had to go to his local butcher to buy off-cuts to feed the increasing number of the wild birds.

It has now been around 30 years since the first winter and the farm has five public hides and five photographer hides for people to observe the birds up close, and there is ongoing work to install more hides at the facility.

Around 500 red kites visit the farm every day where Chris shovels meat from the back of a tractor which he uses to transport it from a “meat locker”.

Chris, who feeds “natures scavengers” whatever the weather, said: “The kites know where the food comes from. It’s kept in a meat locker and we always get more meat on a Wednesday. They always congregate at the meat locker and follow me to the field where I feed them.”

Chris, who lives with his wife Dominique who runs the gift shop and sorts the accounts and his son Thomas Brickwood, said they also get buzzards and ravens at the site. He said in 2010, during four months of snow, they were also visited by a black kite.

Gigrin Farm is also home to a rehabilitation centre which helps unwell red kites as well as other similar species which are brought in like buzzards.

Chris said that while the BBC film crew had been able to observe the red kites being fed, there were none being treated by the rehabilitation facility at the time.

He said: “We have kites and buzzards brought in by the public and also the vets like in Aberystwyth.

“If they’ve got broken bones we can help them get back out, we have very few losses, we are very successful. We had two kites in recently and they were released 10 days later and they were a healthy weight.”

It’s not the first time Chris has featured in nature programmes as he was also recently featured in a Japanese TV programme and he did initially appear on the BBC News only three or four months after the station had first started.

Chris said: “It’s very good, I feel quite proud of what I’ve done here.”

Viewers of tonight’s episode will be able to see Chris driving the tractor from the meat locker and feeding the kites, including slow motion shots of the birds diving for the food and eating it. They will also be able to see the sheer number of red kites which visit the farm.

A BBC spokeswoman said: “The team were determined to feature the red kite, a species which is synonymous with Wales.”

The episode is due to air at 8pm today (Thursday) on BBC One Wales and it will also be available on BBC iPlayer for 30 days after it is aired.