Persecution

The news that four pairs of hen harriers nested in England this summer has been very welcome. Nine chicks were reared from the pair of nests located in the Forest of Bowland (Lancashire), five from a nest in the Derwent Valley (Derbyshire) and an unreported number from a nest at an unspecified location in northern England. While the figure of four pairs is nowhere near the number that should breed in England, the situation is an improvement on last year; 2013 was the first year in nearly four decades with no hen harriers reported breeding in the country.

The lack of breeding hen harriers underlines the levels of persecution still impacting on this and other scarce birds of prey. Hen harriers breed on heather moorland and in the early stages of plantation forest; their breeding populations in these habitats are influenced by the availability of food and by deliberate human interference and illegal killing. The latter is a particular problem on driven grouse moors, where harriers are viewed as an unwanted predator of young grouse, destined to be shot.

That illegal persecution of our bird of prey populations still continues is revealed by the recent case in which a worker on Norfolk’s Stody Estate was found guilty of the illegal poisoning of 10 buzzards and a sparrowhawk. Then there is the case of the disappearing Montagu’s harrier. Several of these rare birds have been fitted with satellite tags, allowing researchers the opportunity to follow their movements, and one of the birds – a three-year old female nicknamed ‘mo’ – disappeared shortly after leaving a roost site close to Great Bircham. The sudden loss of the tag signal is an exceedingly rare occurrence with this type of tag and the researchers suspect that she may have suffered illegal persecution.

The issue of illegal persecution is, at last, catching wider attention. There have been high profile campaigns against the persecution and, additionally, calls to ban driven grouse shooting. Back in August, the national Hen Harrier Day protest attracted much media interest and celebrity support. A growing number of people now recognise that we need to address the persecution taking place here; after all, how can we challenge the appalling illegal slaughter of birds in Malta when we allow persecution to continue here.

Roost

It will not be long until dusk. The muddy footpath makes progress difficult and lodges in my mind the unsettling suspicion that we will arrive too late and so miss the promised spectacle. We’ve come to Lakenheath Fen, one of our regular haunts, in order to see the growing roost of marsh and hen harriers that has been something of a feature this winter. Although the marsh harriers can be seen here throughout the day, and indeed throughout the year, the hen harriers are a seasonal visitor, arriving on the short winter afternoons shortly before dusk.

The walk out yields up two barn owls and a salvonian grebe, the latter rare inland and the first I have seen in the Brecks. A herd of mute swans, 32 in number and feeding in a pasture, hints at the visiting whooper and bewick’s wintering further out into the fens but our journey today ends here, a small group of us stood on the banked footpath and looking back across the reserve. Off to our left is a larger group of birdwatchers, dutifully gathered at the crane watchpoint, but ours is the better position, shaped by local knowledge and the position of the low winter sun.

Within moments we have our first harriers, two marsh and a single male hen harrier. He is a stunning male, the grey wings readily picked out against the dark of the marsh and the line of trees and shrubs beyond. Soon we pick out others, our counts reaching at least five different individuals. As well as the harriers, there are a perched peregrine, the resident pair of cranes and a passing kestrel. As the light begins to go, so two of the hen harriers continue to hunt, coming closer and closer to where we are standing. The views are breathtaking as the harriers float by on owl-like wings, occasionally checking their buoyant flight to hover over possible prey.

The roost this year is almost certainly the best it has ever been, surpassing the numbers being seen elsewhere within the region and providing a good number of visiting birdwatchers with a fantastic late winter spectacle. This spectacle includes not just the birds but also the fenland landscape and the dramatic late winter sky.

Ring-tails much in evidence

It has been one of those little runs, where each birdwatching trip has turned up a species that I do not often see. Over the last three weeks it has been the Hen Harrier, with one or more individuals seen on each occasion that I have been out on the coast. First it was Blakeney Point, with two birds working the dunes beyond halfway house. Then it was Titchwell, again two birds but this time hunting the marshes out towards Thornham and, most recently, it has been Cley, with a single bird working the sea wall for Meadow Pipits and, quite possibly, Snow Buntings.

For me, the Hen Harrier is a bird of winter afternoons, watched coming in to roost at Stubb Mill or Warham Greens. To see them so well this much earlier in the year is a welcome bonus, a little run of good fortune.

The Hen Harrier last bred in the county in 1861 (at Horsey) and is now a passage migrant and winter visitor. Its changing fortunes mirror those over the country as a whole, a species that was once widespread but taken to the brink of extinction in Britain because of intense persecution. Breeding Hen Harriers take grouse chicks, along with Meadow Pipits, Skylarks, voles, Rabbits and young waders, and have therefore been shot, trapped and poisoned by generations of gamekeepers. As has been the case with other persecuted species, the population recovered somewhat in the 1940s but even now, with legal protection in place, it remains heavily persecuted. Its loss from its few English moorland breeding grounds for a second time remains a real possibility. Even on its wintering grounds the Hen Harrier is not safe from persecution; two were shot coming in to a roost in northwest Norfolk in the 2007/08 winter.

Those individuals that winter in Norfolk come from breeding populations in Wales and Scotland, joined by smaller numbers of birds from the Continent. Arrivals begin in September, peaking in October with further influxes later into the winter if weather conditions on the near Continent push birds further west. Perhaps a dozen or so favoured roost sites are used, the birds roosting communally on the ground in reeds or other vegetation. Research has shown that most roosts contain between two and 10 birds, often with other birds of prey present (such as Marsh Harrier and Merlin) but some can hold up to two dozen birds. As well as roosts along the North Norfolk coast, others can be found in the Brecks, the Fens and the Broads. Many birdwatchers visit the better-known roosts towards the end of a day’s birdwatching but seeing these magnificent birds on a crisp late autumn day is infinitely better.