UK's rarest breeding birds raise chicks for first time in six years

Channel 4

6 days ago

We can't tell you where it's happening. We really can't tell you quite why it's happening. But as the bloke who set up the Woodstock Festival once famously remarked:
'The point is man – it's happening!'
They're back. After an absence of six years, Montagu's Harriers have bred this year, at a location we can't disclose in England.
They've bred well too, producing no fewer than four chicks: three male and one female. How do they know? Well it turns out the colour of the iris in the chicks' eyes differs between the male and the female and the
RSPB has been taking
such a close look it's examined the nest on a number of occasions, not least to check out this vital information.
The nest
marks the breeding place of the rarest bird producing chicks in the UK this year. This male and female and that is it.
These birds come and go, migrating from Senegal in West Africa, back to Europe every summer and because of ringing we know that the male was hatched in southern England back in 2015 – and he's now hitched up with a French partner to produce this year's spectacular breeding success.
Four fully fledged youngsters now, brown and almost the same size as the grey male and the fawn coloured female – the mother and father.
All it seems, bizarrely well accustomed to the vehicles that come and go here. The farmer in this case has been driving to the wheat field, checking on them regularly twice a day from the first time that he noticed what he thought was a harrier of some sort.
'The male was hatched in England back in 2015 – and he's now hitched up with a French partner to produce this year's spectacular breeding success.'
It's an area where there are Marsh Harriers but these were different. They looked to him much smaller when sat on a fence post and yet when they took to the air that enormous wingspan, the unmistakable sky signature of a major bird of prey.
Protection of this nest site is obviously critical because of the abiding problem of egg thieves at the early stages of incubation, back in May when the wheat field was as yet green and short and the birds vulnerable.
The secret had to be kept mainly because of a rather different problem – not one of egg thieves so much, as bird enthusiasts. Were the location disclosed the problem would be scores, perhaps hundreds of twitchers.
People – well let's face it largely men – coming and setting up shop with the long lenses to tick off another vital species on their list. That problem will soon disappear in a matter of days, perhaps even tomorrow.
The youngsters are now fully fledged – their adult feathers have grown. They'll very soon disperse and prepare for the long journey south to Senegal.
Yet all the while there is a loud human disruption here which you think would have a negative effect on these birds. In fact as we filmed the nest site exclusively for Channel 4 News, it was the exact time to harvest the field containing the nest.
The combine was approaching up the track. This is top grade milling wheat for bread and today had to be the day. Tomorrow wouldn't do. Yesterday was no good either. So what to do?
We filmed in the cockpit of the combine as it gradually entered around the field, leaving a space around the nest. For some months the nest itself has been marked out by a small fence to protect it from ground predators.
You might think that the effect of a massive combine, the noise, the dust and all the rest of it would disturb the birds. But they simply don't mind. They flew all around the nest, with the adults returning with food for the well-grown offspring.
But should a human emerge from such a machine they would fly away at once, as indeed they did when RSPB officials arrived to mark out a safe area around the nest for the combine.
No panic, they soon returned.
It all marks the conclusion of a successful partnership between the farmer here and the RSPB. But the fortunes of these birds are mixed.
Essentially the UK lies on the very far north-western fringe of their range. The birds come up from migration in West Africa through Spain and France and a tiny proportion of those fetch up in the UK some years.
There is another story though, other birds migrate up via
Turkey
to Eastern Europe and as far as Russia and the story of those two routes is very different.
The western birds which come to the UK are not doing very well. Their numbers appear to be declining across Spain and France and indeed the UK. However for those eastern flying birds, breeding patterns in Eastern Europe appear to be going from strength to strength, so the picture is mixed across Europe.
But for this year in the UK, with one nest, two parents and four healthy youngsters – some very good news indeed. And the prize is that these birds like to come back to the same sites for nesting sometimes, year upon year.
Here's hoping…
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