Firstly, I think a quick introduction is necessary, just to put you in the picture! My name is Pete Wilson and I’ve had the pleasure of working in the uplands, with hen harriers, for the RSPB, and with a whole range of partners, for the last nine years – or at least it will be nine years this coming Sunday.
For these nine years I’ve been based here at the United Utilities (UU) Bowland Estate Office, in north east Lancashire. For those of you who don’t know, UU is a water and electricity supply company, owning approximately 50,000ha of upland water catchment in Cumbria, Lancashire and the Peak District.
So let’s cut to the chase. The 10,000ha of land UU own here in the Forest of Bowland is the single most important site for breeding hen harriers in England. By way of an example of this importance, last year seven of the ten successful hen harrier nests in England were on the UU Bowland estate. As a very crude measure, this works out at one successful nest per 1,500ha on the UU estate and a successful nest per 730,000ha in the rest of upland England!! But, of course, the rest of upland England isn’t all suitable for nesting hen harriers. However, I think you get the drift of where I’m coming from.
From early March we employ a seasonal warden to locate and monitor hen harrier (and peregrine and merlin) nests. This year our warden is Richard Storton, who also did the job in 2006 and 2007. Richard is assisted in this work by myself, but more importantly by a dedicated team of volunteers, who I’ll introduce at a later date, as well as a range of other partners, who I hope you’ll also get to know over the course of the next four or five months. This really is a team effort, but Richard is at the centre of it.
Anyway, “less of the waffle, what’s been happening on the harrier front?” I hear you say. The short answer is, not a lot! But we do have hen harriers about, with two birds seen early last week, and a further sighting at the end of the week. In fact, Richard has just come in to the office, looking rather glum, having seen no harriers today… Of course this situation will be rapidly evolving, with the first nests probably four or five weeks away.
One bit of interesting news was the report yesterday from the Natural England Hen Harrier Recovery Project, of the location of one of the male harrier chicks fledged from a nest on the estate last year. This chick had a satellite tag fitted to it as part of their project. There were several transmissions from it during the autumn, mostly relatively local, and then it stopped transmitting from late autumn until early February – possibly due to lack of power in the battery, which is charged by a tiny solar cell. On the 10 February it was just down the road, near Wigan. However, yesterday, it transmitted from a location near March, in the Cambridgeshire Fens! Somebody tell him he’s going the wrong way!
Speak to you soon.
Pete
Thanks so much for this report, Pete. I'm so looking forward to reading more. And thanks to all the team for caring for these beautiful birds for all of us!