Saw a Marsh harrier in the dales about 6 weeks ago, is this a rarity?
If in an upland habitat then it is a rarity, although a couple of years ago a pair nested in moorland in North Yorkshire. Usual habitat is lowland reedbeds.
It was hunting quite high up the fell over a boggy area, got some footage on video
Can you take some screenshots and post them here?
That's a Short Eared Owl. Much more typical denizen of the upland moors.
Check out this vid for flight similarities: www.youtube.com/watch
The bird in your second video looks like a Kestrel to me
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Tony
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Seemed bigger to me, am no expert. It was an rspb guy who said a marsh harrier. Shame I didn't have better camera with me
I agree with TeeJay that the second bird is a kestrel. It is clearly a different bird to the first one and neither, IMO, is a Marsh Harrier. Even the RSPB can be wrong sometimes....
As two different species have been filmed, the RSPB person may have been talking about a third bird…..that or the RSPB person was wrong, which isn’t unheard of.