Scotland: Hawks steal skinny dippers' Armani underwear to line their luxury nests

Birds of prey have apparently been stealing the underwear of skinny dippers at a wild swimming spot in the Angus Glens, Scotland, including pairs of expensive, designer-brand undergarments, it was reported on Thursday (23 June).

After Dave Clement, a gamekeeper on the Gannochy estate in the Angus glens, discovered how red kites had taken pants and socks for their nests, he contacted the RSPB to have the kite chicks ringed and recorded.

Clement said it was the second year in a row that the rare birds had taken the underwear, only this time they were helping themselves to more expensive brands.

"The licensed ringer who went up the tree to the nest said there were Armani pants and another brand as well as socks, which they must have pinched off the swimmers at the local gorge.

"It seems they will take anything to line the nest, then lay the eggs on top, and someone must have gone home minus some underwear. It is clearly working because a nest is very successful," he said.

"Last year there were two chicks, now it's four, and there is clearly plenty of food for them on the estate," the Telegraph reported.

The red kite is renowned for taking items to make its nest with the Royal Society for The Protection of Birds (RSPB) saying that the underwear from clothes lines is a favourite, the paper reported.

The red kite became extinct in England around the end of the nineteenth century. However according to the RSPB there are now over 200 breeding pairs in the area and in the last two decades they have been re-introduced to England and Scotland with good results.