It has taken some time to confirm that our male and female marsh harriers are actually a pair and have nested. As they have cunningly chosen a site out of view of the hides in an inaccessible part of the reed bed, the early stages of their season have been largely unobserved. The female has adopted a very low profile, flying only a few meters to come off her nest and receive food from the male, and no aerial food passes were seen until recently. The female would normally stay with any chicks until they are big enough to be left unattended, and it wasn't until yesterday that she was seen to leave the reserve to hunt. This could be indicative of nest failure, but the male later brought some food to the area. I hope the oldest chick fledges in time for our Discovery Day on 21st June - it would be fantastic to be able to show that to our visitors.
Thats brilliant news Doug, will try and pop across this weekend but i would imagine this might make it quite busy, but would love to get some film of a food pass :)