What is that makes a place special?
I’m sure you’ll have a variety of views on that! The landscape, personal memories of happy times, a link with your childhood – as a reader of this blog there’s a fair bet your answer might include the wildlife that you find there.
A beautiful view empty of its cast of wild characters that bring it to life is a sad place.
Earlier this year I offered to write a series of blog posts re-living my summer in the Forest of Bowland 30 years ago (here's one). It was my first job with the RSPB and it was a great opportunity to get to know one of its iconic residents – hen harriers.
Iconic?
Yes – as the sign for the Bowland Area of Outstanding Beauty makes clear, hen harriers have become a bit of a roadside icon.
Our plan was that we would run the highlights of 1982 alongside the Jude Lane’s ‘live’ season of 2012, how would the seasons differ? When would nests be found?
It didn’t work out like that.
No harriers nested in Bowland this spring. Only one pair nested in the whole of England. I pressed on with the stories of harriers a generation ago; as it dawned on us all that crisis point had been reached. I’m sure my revelations of finding nests and watching skydancing harriers did nothing to lift the gloom of the team of 2012.
But there was one optimistic story in the spring of 2013; female hen harrier 74843, who became known as Bowland Betty, was carrying a satellite tag and we were able to follow her travels. She returned to Bowland, raised hopes, but left. Perhaps she was too young; certainly she would have struggled to find another of her kind.
As we now know her story ended in tragedy – shot and found dead on a moor in North Yorkshire. Here’s Jude’s account of her birth and untimely death.
A sickening end to a dreadful year for a bird that is being driven from our land by attitudes that have changed little since Victorian times.
But we’re in the twenty first century and Bowland Betty’s brief life must be a turning point in the future of hen harriers – here’s Martin Harper setting out the challenge for 2013 and beyond. Many players have a role – there is a significant menu of actions the coalition Government must tackle, we are gearing up to redouble our efforts (Martin is cagey about the detail as is right when helping to tackle illegal activity), and Martin highlights the role individuals and society need to play.
Hen harriers stir passions amongst the few – but their absence from large parts of our uplands, now significantly worsened, means that too few people know their story – this needs to change.
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Just noticed the first line of the blog post was missing - or rather replaced by a repeat of the title. I've just corrected it.