#welney

Drain near Welney, Norfolk Fens.

Fred Ingrams

Species appreciation post: Hen Harrier for Hen Harrier Day 2020 (With a couple of Marsh Harrier pictures in this set for storytelling purposes) 

I did intend to post this tonight but I have looked at the Hen Harrier Day hashtag on Twitter and seen it in full swing and thought the day has rather passed by tonight so I am posting it now. Its time for my latest species appreciation post and today I am celebrating one of the most beautiful, elegant and iconic bird species in the UK. I am extremely fond of the Hen Harrier, and have known what a remarkable looking and inspirational bird they are from when I first saw one in bird books getting into birdwatching as a kid and when one of my heroes Simon King followed a pair in Islay, Scotland during the first BBC Springwatch I ever watched my favourite TV programme. For me Hen Harriers are a bird like no other, the rulers of the skies with their fantastic colours and markings both males and females and their sky dancing ways. 

Please see this footage of one posted by the RSPB to see what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbuovJyIWLs Whilst this is something I have never actually seen myself it took my breath away and I aspire to see it. 

But that’s the fear, that I won’t be able to have the chance to one day see them doing this for much longer. This post is probably to be deemed one of the most political I’ve ever done being posted on what is among others at this time of year as they have been for a few years in August now Hen Harrier Day, and to that I say good! For as I know I reach a variety of people here, if you are not aware, there is a crime wave ravaging the British uplands where these birds are home. Years and years of persecution, generally as a result of conflict with the driven grouse shooting industry which is a big debate as its so all encompassing of those types of landscapes. Birds like Golden Eagles, Buzzards and the list goes on have been found trapped, poisoned and generally killed due mostly to their natural right to exist in an ecosystem that is being managed, and this blog is prompting strong opinion from me I must say and I know there will always be differing viewpoints that is a beautiful thing itself this part of this blog is an opinion piece not factual, to within an inch of its life. 

But no bird is suffering from these cruel acts, which I have to stress is not being carried out by absolutely everybody associated with driven grouse shooting and the shooting industry but just by those criminal minority who think its their right to control nature, more so than the Hen Harrier. In England especially this bird is struggling and could soon simply be wiped out. Its a sad fact that has prompted over the last half decade or so one of the most popular and inspirational wildlife conservation movements I have ever known. People have been united in their quest to raise awareness and turn the tide on raptor persecution especially against the majestic Hen Harrier. Mark Avery’s book “Inglorious: Conflict in the Uplands” was a gamechanger that prompted Hen Harrier Day and in my opinion paved the way for movements like Wild Justice with his co-founders of that group Ruth Tingay and Chris Packham. We are all aware of what continues to go on, and how wrong it is. And we shall never give up. 

The descriptions of the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inglorious-Conflict-Uplands-Mark-Avery/dp/1472917413 perfectly describe the situation. 

I’ve sadly never managed to get to a physical Hen Harrier Day, but at the Bird Fair where I usually go every year I have seen some passionate, informed and explosive debates centering this topic the last few years. Many have been from and involving the inspirational Chris Packham and in some supporting photos of mine in this post the seventh one is one I took of him in the events marque at the Bird Fair in 2016 at Rutland Water where it is always held. Here his board references one of the most significant features of this movement the petition to government to ban driven grouse shooting which received phenomenal support. 

So with the political backdrop addressed, here is my story with seeing Hen Harriers. Its obvious from this post already I think and me generally how much I love birds of prey some of my favourite birds are among them. And I marveled at seeing them right from when I began birdwatching. But I was late to the party with harrier species, not seeing my first of the commoner Marsh Harrier until 2012, I began birdwatching in 2006/07. I’d seen White-tailed Eagle before I’d seen a harrier with a sighting of one in Hampshire a rare one in 2011. Quite something, pre Isle of Wight sea eagle reintroduction project, for someone from Hampshire. My first Marsh Harrier came at RSPB’s Radipole Lake in Weymouth, Dorset such a stronghold for them where I later took the fourth picture in this photoset of this bird I could do a separate one of these posts on in 2018. I took the third in this photoset of a Marsh Harrier at Farlington Marshes in January this year. 

It was a year later I felt in heaven at making it a harrier double as at WWT’s Welney reserve in Norfolk in 2013 when a real fight back of seeing birds and huge expansion in the amount of birds I had seen that year was just beginning around Easter, when I got the briefest but most precious view of a female Hen Harrier. Looking back, Hen Harrier was so key to that 2013 super year for me for birds and other wildlife which is so important to my hobby. It was on the way back from that Norfolk trip chatting to someone at the RSPB’s London reserve Rainham Marshes who’d been surveying them there in days prior that we learned Hen Harrier migrate to our native (there about) New Forest in winter. In 2015 nearly exactly at the spot she’d said she’d been at when we parked up at Godshill in the New Forest for a walk a man who saw we had binoculars etc. happily and like he almost couldn’t believe us told us he’d seen a female Hen Harrier. As we walked around we kept our eyes open and saw this female! As well as some possible left over prey bits of a pigeon on the ground. This was a fantastic view that really allowed us to make out their markings so well that beautiful colour and the famous ring tail. It was one of my best bird moments ever I remember thinking to myself this weekend I’ve seen one of the rarest birds in the country to set a little surge towards the end of 2015 where I saw so many birds I’d only seen for the second time ever. 

I would see Hen Harriers the next two years, my first ever male whilst we were driving through Snowdonia, Wales in 2016 apt as I actually wrote this post and timed to go out when it was Hen Harrier Day Wales. A brilliant bit of birding to add into that holiday alongside other top birds seen. I saw another male and this time photographed it the first in this photoset at Ibsley Common in the New Forest in 2017 where my Mum had seen them before that year. One of my greatest ever New Forest and birdwatching moments on a typical winter’s day just before Christmas that shall live very long in the memory. Very amazing to appreciate a male flying. 

I never take for granted I’ll see a Hen Harrier every year and with it tied at 2-2 between males and females I’d seen, I didn’t see one in 2018 despite trying out some locations. 

But the end of 2019 signaled a new era for me and Hen Harriers. When searching for a Great Grey Shrike we’d eventually see in 2020 at the Whitefield Moor/Holmhill bog area in the New Forest a first of few trips there last winter we saw a lightly coloured bird of prey fly over whilst looking at Fieldfares on a semi rainy day and I just could not get a very good view of it to see what it was. Marsh Harrier went down alongside a hawk as a possible candidate. But it hit me when looking at someone’s Facebook post of the Great Grey Shrike as he had seen a Hen Harrier too with a picture of it nearby to where we were. It was good habitat, could it have been that? A bird I was desperate to see as I chased down another bird year list highest ever total for me needing to surpass my 198 seen in 2018. 

The stage in hindsight was truly set then as on Sunday 29th December 2019 another typical winter’s afternoon with me working the following Monday and Tuesday we went back to Holmhill bog looking for the Great Grey Shrike on my last wildlife/photography walk of 2019 where I produced a lot of sky pictures. I was on 199 birds at that point, my bogey bird for the year Slavonian Grebe seen at Lymington on Christmas Day had secured my personal record again. But I looked set to end another year agongisingly close to achieving every birder’s goal of 200 birds seen in a year for my first time ever. We looked over the heath at a lead which didn’t in the end turn out to be the Great Grey Shrike that had continually been reported. When at that moment a bird of prey fly over my Mum picked it up and we instantly knew what it was, a female Hen Harrier! I was in heaven as I watched my 200th bird of the year soar over the boggy heath. What a sensational moment with an incredible species. Another one flew out moments later too, a Short-eared Owl. The only way to end such an incredible year of wildlife and birdwatching for me and year listing. I managed a very poor standard record shot of the Hen Harrier flying with my new camera at that point the second picture in this photoset but I wanted to having something to remember this extremely important moment for me by. This is my fourth this year and actually my 20th of these species appreciation posts now. So fitting what I will probably always now know as bird 200 was the subject of it. 

The January issue of the Welney News is now out. I’m very pleased with this issue.  I must say I’m not sure what’s happened to my copied image here as the title is refusing to stay on the page, the good news is that the full title etc will be on the printed copy.