Male Hen Harriers are pale grey and females are brown with a white rump and a long, barred tail. They have a stunningly beautiful display flight known as “skydancing”, and as the nesting season progresses, the smaller male will call the larger, better-camouflaged female off the nest and throw food to her in mid-air so that she can feed the chicks. They mostly eat voles and Meadow Pipits.
Hen Harrier is on the Scottish Biodiversity List. They are also on the UK Birds of Conservation Concern Red List.
Photos: Andy Hay for rspb-images.com
Illustration: Mike Langman for rspb-images.com
Action Needed
We need the grouse moor licensing provisions of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Act to be robustly enforced and to serve as an effective wildlife crime deterrent. This also means that Police Scotland need to be adequately resourced to investigate all potential wildlife crime incidents. We need continued funding for satellite tagging of Hen Harriers, as this is an indispensable tool for population study, and for identifying potential cases of illegal persecution.
We also need the statutory Muirburn Code, required by the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Act, to be introduced as promised in Autumn 2026.
The Scottish Government must report on the population size and range of Hen Harriers, according to a provision of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Act. Scottish Government funding is needed for the monitoring that would provide these data.
The Orkney Native Wildlife Project, which is a world-leading invasive non-native species eradication programme, has seen an increase in Hen Harriers thanks to the removal of non-native stoats, which are nest predators. We need continued funding and access to private land to see this project through to completion.
Threats
Although it is illegal to kill birds of prey or disturb their nests, Hen Harriers are still illegally persecuted, and in terms of their population size they are the UK’s most heavily persecuted bird of prey. These crimes invariably occur on land being managed for driven grouse shooting.
Other threats include habitat loss through forest expansion or renewables developments, muirburn/moorland burning which can remove potential nests sites in deep heather, and predation of eggs and chicks.
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