A Morning with the Marsh Harrier Chick at Fowlmere

5th August 2025

It's been a rather eventfull year at Fowlmere as far as the Marsh Harriers are concerned with the male disappearing in March to be replaced within weeks by a second male, a nesting attempt at the old traditional site which was abandoned in late April and then another nesting attempt at a new location early May. So basically everything pushed back by a month, but eventually some good news with a single chick seen at the nest on the 30th/31st July and during its first flight on the 1st August, so time for a visit.

Hardly saw or heard a bird on the walk to the Reedbed Hide, but there was plenty of butterfly action with several Red Admirals and Speckled Woods.

Fairly quiet at the hide initially with all the young Reed Warblers seemingly moved on, and the only photo opportunity at the time was a pair of Stock Doves perched on top of the trees by the Barn Owl box. Stock Doves are quite common at Fowlmere, and if you see a pair of doves flying quite close together chances are they are Stock Doves. Beautiful pastel shades and frequently overlooked.

The one thing I've learnt over the years is that during the first weeks after fledging juvenile Marsh Harriers are notoriously lazy. You would think that having discovered the power of flight they would be gliding around the reed bed all day, just enjoying their new-found freedom. But instead they tend to sit around all day waiting for an adult to bring them food. So I wasn't too surprised to find this one sitting in a Hawthorn bush.

A few hours later and still no action so even the Barn Owl had gone to sleep!!!

Then the adult male flew in with a miniscule prey item and did a few laps to advertise its presence.

This was enough to coax the juvenile into action which collected the prey and took it off to devour it. That prey item was very small so no more than a snack, and therefore the male flew off again almost immediately to get some more.

It is now time for adult Marsh Harriers have have their annual moult and it can be seen that the male is just starting its wing and tail moult. The wing moult starts at the intersection of the dark brown primaries and the pale grey secondaries and moves symmetrically through the primaries to the wing tips and through the secondaries towards the body The tail moult starts in the centre of the tail and moves outwards to the outer tail feathers.

The wing moult can be seen more clearly in the flight shots above.

Well, a rather eventful year but at least they were successful. Also good to have a catch-up with Sukhdev Sigh and meet Chiew Loo.

See you all next year.