{"id":536486,"date":"2026-04-17T19:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T19:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/536486\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T19:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T19:30:07","slug":"a-red-kite-stole-my-mother-in-laws-sausage-rolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/536486\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A red kite stole my mother-in-law’s sausage rolls’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n John Oxenham saw the widely shared photos of the bird of prey clutching the baked snack and knew immediately where they’d come from.\n<\/p>\n

\n The 67-year-old explained that he often leaves food scraps in his and wife Samantha Frewin’s garden in South Newington, and recognised the kite that took them.\n<\/p>\n

\n Having visited Mrs Frewin’s mother, June, at her home in Kent on Mother’s Day, they returned home with a tub of her homemade sausage rolls.\n<\/p>\n

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\n John Oxenham and Samantha Frewin, with Mrs Frewin’s mother, June. (Image: Samantha Frewin \/ SWNS)\n<\/p>\n

\n Two days later, Mr Oxenham left some of the baked goods out in the garden for the birds.\n<\/p>\n

\n Then, after arriving in Cornwall for a getaway the following day, the couple came across photos of the kite clutching a snack that looked ever-so-familiar.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Oxenham, a retired commercial pilot, said: “I’m the culprit who put out the sausage rolls.\n<\/p>\n

\n “We went down to see Sam’s mum in Kent for Mother’s Day, and she gave us a tub of sausage rolls.\n<\/p>\n

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\n A red kite with a sausage roll in its talons in the skies above Ruscote, in Banbury. (Image: Mark Hopkins \/ SWNS)\n<\/p>\n

\n “I put some out for the birds, and that’s when the kite took the sausage roll.\n<\/p>\n

\n “My wife showed me the pictures and said: ‘This story about the kite is going mad!’.\n<\/p>\n

\n “You can see it was my mother-in-law’s – they’re pale in colour.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Mrs Frewin, 47, said she first noticed the photo being shared on Instagram.\n<\/p>\n

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\n John Oxenham and Samantha Frewin. (Image: Samantha Frewin \/ SWNS)\n<\/p>\n

\n “As soon as I saw the photo, I thought: ‘Oh no… That’s one of my mum’s sausage rolls’,” the retired HMRC worker said.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Sam showed me the picture,” Mr Oxenham added.\n<\/p>\n

\n “It was instantly recognisable. I said: ‘That’s our kite with your mum’s sausage roll’.\n<\/p>\n

\n “I thought I would put the world right on where it came from.\n<\/p>\n

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\n John Oxenham and Samantha Frewin, with Mrs Frewin’s mother, June. (Image: Samantha Frewin \/ SWNS)\n<\/p>\n

\n “I’m just glad he wasn’t photographed with some naan bread in its talons… The ravens love their curry!\n<\/p>\n

\n “At least the red kite found a nice source of food… What would she rather have, a manky mouse or a nice sausage roll?”\n<\/p>\n

\n Amateur photographer Mark Hopkins snapped the hungry bird of prey in his garden in Ruscote, in Banbury, when the giant bird soared overhead.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mark, 57, a welder, said: \u201cThere are often kites flying over us, but I\u2019ve never seen this before.\n<\/p>\n

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\n John Oxenham and Samantha Frewin, with Mrs Frewin’s mother, June. (Image: Samantha Frewin \/ SWNS)\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere was one huge red kite that banked up in front of me, and it was clearly holding something in its talons.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what it was at first, but looking at the pictures on my camera, it was obvious it was a sausage roll.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhether it had snatched it out of someone\u2019s hand or picked it up off the floor, I don\u2019t know, but it did look fresh.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt was a remarkable thing to see, and I\u2019m just so happy I had my camera ready at the right time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n There are an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 breeding pairs of red kites in the UK, with increasing numbers living in urban areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oxenham saw the widely shared photos of the bird of prey clutching the baked snack and knew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-536486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}