The Harrying of the Hen Harrier

 

It is always nice when a bird of prey comes back from the brink and the Hen harrier provides a good news story along these lines (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/hen-harrier-has-best-breeding-year-in-england-for-nearly-20-years/ar-BB18E89g). This bird was almost driven to extinction in the UK as it was perceived as a danger to the productivity of lucrative grouse moors. The Hen harrier has been helped by a process called 'brood management', where chicks are removed from the nest, before being hand-reared (whilst avoiding problematic imprinting). Removal of the chick, causes the female bird to lay additional eggs, which the parents can rear. The removed chick can later be released into a suitable (one without resident hen harriers but with good nesting sites and supplies of appropriate prey) location. This  has been a bumper vole (a prey of the harrier) year and a record 60 chicks were fledged from 19 nests across the North Pennines (boosting the total to 141 for the last 3 years). Some of the grouse moor owners are actually cooperating in this conservation programme but birds of prey are still illegally shot or poisoned in parts of this country.