Sunday, 20 April 2025

A Morning with the Marsh Harriers

16th April 2025

Mid-April so time for a visit to see how the Marsh Harriers are getting on. Fairly quiet when we first arrived so time to settle down for a cup of tea with Jan Michalec and wait. Only a few minutes later I heard my first cuckoo of the year which flew across and landed on the bank of the nearby ditch. A bit distant but nice to see nevertheless.


The next supporting act was one of the local Ravens being seen off by a Carrion Crow which shows the size difference


And to complete the cabaret was a fly-past by a juvenile Peregrine Falcon, possibly the first I have seen here.

So now on to the harriers, but first a little history. In 2022 the resident male did not return to the site after the winter and was replaced by another bird. This bird had a rather unusual plumage, to such an extent that it was originally thought to be a female. However, close inspection of some of the photos revealed that it was in fact a 3CY male, and not only a male but also one of the scarce barred variants. This photo taken in June 2024 shows the barring across the primaries and secondaries, and also a red tail compared to the more conventional grey tail.

The barred variant bred with the resident female in 2022, 2023 and 2024 and arrived back on site in January this year and was seen mating with the female. It then disappeared in February. The last photo of it was posted on the Friends of Fowlmere (FOF) Facebook page on the 16th February. Then a new male arrived and the first photo of this new bird posted on the FOF page was on the 31st March and has a more conventional plumage. Here are some shots of it taken today.






























This is it seeing off a Red Kite.


The female only made a couple of brief appearances...................




.....................and during one of these brought some more reeds into the nest.


Let's hope they are successful.










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