Standing in the car park overlooking Holywell Lake I could see the leisurely wing beats of a female Marsh harrier. Slightly bigger than a buzzard, and with broad wings for a harrier, they are distinctive because of their easily recognisable slow flight and the almost floppy movement of their wings.
Image credit: Chris Gomersall (rspb-images)
She was circling the lake repeatedly, swooping at times in search of prey. Whether she was feeding herself or chicks is uncertain, and it would take hours of regular viewing to find out. If they are to survive the female must return to the nest at least once every four hours to feed her rapidly growing chicks. So the continued presence in an area, does not confirm nesting chicks, but it does give us reasonable grounds to be hopeful.
It makes a beautiful sight, the large brown raptor flying amongst the golden colours of the reeds, accompanied by the constant chattering and singing of the various warblers, invisible in the dense reed bed.
The wing beats look relaxed and leisurely because the Marsh harrier is an exceptionally slow flying bird. As according to BBC Nature Wildlife they can ... remain airborne at speeds of less than 32kmph (20mph). They fly this slowly because it allows them time to spot their prey. Their main food being frogs (having raised tadpoles into frogs recently I feel a bit for the little froglets at the moment) small mammals, fledging and anything that is relatively easy to catch.
If Golden eagles are iconic of mountainous Scotland, and the ghost of the Hen harrier associated with the windswept northern grouse moors, then surely the Marsh harrier flying over the fen wide skies, is a bird to make Cambridgeshire (and the rest of East Anglia) proud, flapping leisurely under the summer sun over its traditional hunting ground of the low lying watery fens.