The RSPB has just announced the results of the 2017 hen harrier breeding season in England. There was a pathetic total of three successful nests (England has the capacity for ~330 pairs).
The three successful nests (with ten fledglings) were on land managed by the Forestry Commission in Northumberland.
Read the full, sorry details on the RSPB’s Skydancer blog here.
Well done to the Northumberland Hen Harrier Protection Partnership (Northumberland National Park Authority, Forestry Commission, RSPB, Natural England, Northumberland Wildlife Trust, Ministry of Defence, Northumbria Police, and the Northern England Raptor Forum).
There’s an interesting quote from Andrew Miller of the National Park who says, “We will continue to monitor our birds throughout the year….” This implies that the young birds have been satellite tagged, but according to our sources, only one fledgling was fitted with a tag because Natural England left it too late this year. This seems hard to believe, given NE’s experience of sat tagging hen harriers, but no doubt we’ll hear more about this in due course.
The real story, and what should be our focus of attention, is that for a second year in a row, there wasn’t a single successful breeding attempt on any driven grouse moor in England. This is despite the grouse shooting industry supposedly being signed up to DEFRA’s Hen Harrier InAction Plan.
[Drawing by Gerard Hobley]
If this year’s shameful breeding results don’t inspire you to attend a Hen Harrier Day event this coming weekend, nothing will.
Well done to the RSPB for publishing the details of this year’s breeding season in good time (presumably Natural England is still fiddling with its super computer, trying to count up to three and ‘analysing’ the data).