If you have been following the movements of our satellite tagged birds on our website, you will have noticed that we lost Holly in mid-October 2015, quite soon after she was featured. Needless to say, the project team were gutted as we were looking forward to following her travels and sharing them with you. You can read about her story here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/henharrierlife/holly.html
Photo credit: John Simpson
As soon as her satellite tag data showed us she had died, we went to the site– an area of upland farmland and forestry to the north east of Glasgow - to look for her. We searched the area thoroughly but, unfortunately, we were unable to locate her. This is disappointing as we would have wished to submit the body to a government laboratory for a post mortem examination to try to establish how she died.
Survival rates for young harriers like Holly are low, with only around 1 in 3 surviving to a year old. These youngsters will often die of natural causes such as starvation, but we cannot speculate as to the cause of death in her case.
We will of course provide an update if any further information comes to light.
Very sad to hear of the loss of one of the few,if it can be proved her death was natural at least it will be one crime less to an ever growing list.