Mystery disappearance of UK's rarest raptor still unsolved
A slate-grey male Montagu's harrier shows off the black wing markings.
UK’s rarest raptor
If you’ve never heard of a Montagu’s
harrier, it’s hardly surprising: with only four breeding pairs in the UK,
they are officially the rarest raptor and the rarest breeding bird with a
precarious status. Found in the east and south of the country, they are summer visitors, migrating south to Africa for winter. Harriers are renowned for their exquisite aerial acrobatics,
passing food in flight and performing ingenious displays during courtship. The
Montagu’s agility and elegance when hunting makes them a majestic harrier and
particularly spectacular to watch. To learn more about them, experts have been tagging
individuals to track their migration, habits and breeding grounds. Each pair
needs special protection and their nests are kept secret, so egg poachers
cannot detect them, and they can be left undisturbed.
The tagging process has also meant secretive meetings with only a specialist team involved. Their rarity is what makes the disappearance of a tagged female in August of this year so tragic. Sally the ‘poster girl’
Dubbed the ‘poster girl’ for Montagu’s’ everywhere, Sally
featured in the BBC programme Autumnwatch
and had successfully bred with her partner Roger
for the past two years.
They were the only breeding pair in the Norfolk region after
being tagged by a team that included expert Mark Thomas, a criminal
investigator for the RSPB. It was Mark who fitted Sally’s tag.
The tags use satellites to transmit signals back regarding
the birds’ locations. Sally broke records last year by travelling further than
any other tagged Montagu’s and finished her migration in Ghana.
Mystery disappearance
When I spoke to Mark about this, he told me that the
transmitter had around “seven hours of signals due to be sent. The transmitter
had recharged at 5pm on Saturday 5th August and when the last signal
had been sent on Sunday 6th, her exact location was sketchy.
Sadly, a little later on the 6th August, Sally’s
transmitter went dead, raising suspicions over what happened to her as Roger
sat at the nesting site alone.
The tags are extremely reliable - even if the bird dies. Dutch scientists
recently tracked a tag that had been sending signals a year after the harrier,
named Rowan, had died in Senegal. The transmitter was retrieved eighteen months
after Rowan’s death.
Mark explained to me that, “tags don’t just stop they fade out”. He added that similarly to remote
controls, they simply become less effective rather than ceasing transmissions.
This area is close to the Sandringham Estate, owned by the
royal family. They haven’t escaped accusatory fingers of blame for Sally’s
death.
As much of this land is sublet, it is impossible to know who,
if anyone, is responsible for Sally’s sad demise.
The diet of a Montagu’s harrier consists of small rodents and birds,
insects and lizards. Experts admit they have been targeted land owners on
grouse moors to stop chicks being hunted. So, was she shot down and her tag
destroyed by a game keeper because she posed a threat to young game who are
later themselves shot during the shooting season around Bircham
Tofts?
However, what is more shocking than the revelation of
Sally’s disappearance is the fact that three years ago, in the same area,
another female harrier, Mo,
disappeared in eerily similar circumstances.
To bird enthusiasts, like Nick Bristow, this is no
coincidence. They believe someone knows the truth and they will do anything to
protect the game birds, ready for the controversial shooting season.
What other theories are there?
Before we condemn local game keepers, it needs to be
considered that this may not involve an illegal killing at all. Mark explained
that Sally may have been predated and the transmitter dragged underground by a
fox. She may, as Mark also suggested, turn up at the nesting site next year –
though this seems a highly optimistic and unlikely hope.
What is clear, is that Montagu’s face a conflict in Norfolk
and the RSPB face the challenge of getting to the bottom of whether they are
being illegal killed or not.
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