Stirling bird spotters are being asked to keep their eyes peeled for the rare hen harrier in the district’s skies this spring.
As the weather warms up the raptors become more visible on upland moors where they breed.
Observers, if lucky, can witness the birds’ skydancing display of rolls and dives to mark their territory and demonstrate their strength.
The hen harrier, which nests in heather and soft rush, is the UK’s most persecuted bird of prey relative to its population size.
Illegal killing of the birds has occurred in the Gargunnock area in recent years.
And a satellite-tagged hen harrier named ‘Rannoch’ was found dead on a Perthshire grouse moor – caught in an illegal spring trap on open moorland between Aberfeldy and Crieff – in 2019.
Hen harriers are medium-sized birds of prey, similar to a buzzard but with a slightly slimmer appearance, with long wings and a long tail.
Female and young hen harriers are speckled brown and cream with horizontal stripes on their tails.
Their most striking feature is the patch of white at their rump. Males are slightly smaller and pale grey with black wingtips. Both have a round, owl-like face.
Sightings of the birds can be made to a special RSPB hotline.
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The RSPB’s Jenni Burrell said: “We are calling on the public to email our Hen Harrier Hotline if they believe they’ve seen a hen harrier. This helps us build a picture of where these birds are. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you see them – we welcome any sightings and appreciate your time.
“Hen harriers are beautiful and elusive raptors and, unlike peregrines and kestrels, they are rarely seen in urban environments. So if it’s perched on your fence, it’s probably a sparrowhawk, if it’s in a tree by the roadside, it’s probably a kestrel or a buzzard… but if it’s over rough pasture or moorland, and matches the description above, then you might have seen a hen harrier.”
RSPB Scotland head of investigations Ian Thomson said this week that the breeding rate of the birds in the Stirling area has been low due to persecution.
He commented: “There has been a notable lack of breeding hen harriers in Stirlingshire, in no small part due to the history of illegal killing in parts of the area which has kept many birds of prey from successfully nesting here.
“A concentration of such crimes culminated in a general licence restriction being imposed on a grouse moor in the Gargunnock Hills a few years ago.
“We hope that the scrutiny that grouse moors are now rightly being subjected to, coupled with the potential introduction of licencing of driven grouse shooting in the next Parliament, will lead to raptor persecution being consigned to the history books, and a return to skydancing hen harriers in Stirlingshire’s skies.”
If you think you’ve seen a hen harrier, please email: henharriers@rspb.org.uk
Please include the date, time, location/grid reference and a description of the bird.
