2023-08-24 18:14:45
Never before since protection began in the fields have so many Montagu’s Harrier ‘wings’ fledged as in 2023. ‘We owe it to these birds to continue the intensive protection.’
On the way to the protective piece of mesh that has been placed in the grain around the nest of a Montagu’s Harrier near Oudeschans in East Groningen, it immediately becomes clear why 2023 was such a good harrier year. The narrow path on which we walk through the grain has become one big cheese with holes, full of holes of mice. “That is indeed the explanation,” agrees Almut Schlaich, bird researcher at Montagu’s Harrier – Knowledge Center for Field Birds. “The pellets we collected from the various nests were more than 90 percent full of mouse remains.”
The record of 2023, which the protectors are so excited about, concerns the number of fledglings: 156 pieces. The number of breeding pairs found – especially in Groningen grain – was not a record. Eighty nests were counted in 2020, this year 62. “It is therefore mainly the number of youngsters that have grown up per nest”, Schlaich calculates.
“When they are about three weeks old, we measure and weigh them and give them a ring that allows us to track them individually after they have fledged. On our record lists we always have five columns for up to five chicks, but we don’t normally need all of them. Now with different nests. That is really unprecedented.”
Eaten by your bigger brother
As soon as we arrive at the nest at Oudeschans, three pairs of frightened eyes look at us. One of the chicks still has plenty of down on its head, the other two already have quite a few ‘real’ feathers. Schlaich: “You can clearly see the age difference within such a litter. Unlike most birds, birds of prey such as the harrier start incubating immediately after the first egg. As a result, the eggs also hatch at intervals of a few days. In years with little food, the smallest youngsters do not survive. In fact, they are a kind of ‘life insurance policy’ for the older chicks. In times of famine, the smallest chicks are simply eaten.”
When Schlaich has taken the chicks from the nest in three cotton bags to a place a little further away, where she can quietly ring the birds, she also checks the so-called hunger mail on the feathers. “These are light lines that arise at times when the parents drag in a little less feed. When there is a lack of food, the feathers become slightly thinner for a moment, which you can see as these light stripes in an individual feather. But these chicks hardly have any of those hunger lines.”
The unprecedented number of 156 new Montagu’s Harriers is not only due to this year’s many mice. “Without the conservation work we do with the owners of these grain fields and the efforts of our volunteers, many of these birds would not survive. I even think that the Montagu’s Harrier would disappear from our country in no time.”
Protected since 1990
The protection of Montagu’s Harrier began in 1990, when pioneer Ben Koks first placed straw bales around a nest in a grain field to protect the young from harvesting machines. At that time there were only a few of these birds left in our country. Aided by that protection, the advance began. Over the years, the straw bales were replaced by an open cage, which prevented foxes, martens and free-roaming farm cats from reaching the eggs and young and preventing the nest from being crushed by machines or blown grain.
The number of nests steadily climbed until 2011 when the number of sixty was reached for the first time. Schlaich: “Since then, a stabilization seems to have occurred. In 2020 we had an all-time record of eighty litters, but that has fallen slightly over the past two years. And if we experience a bad mouse year again next year, you will see that the number of fledglings also goes down again.”
Schlaich just wants to say: 2023 may be a top year, but the harrier protectors are still a long way off. “We assume that we need at least 100 pairs for a stable population,” says the researcher.
It seems to be the pinnacle of ‘gardening with nature’: birds that only survive by physically protecting all the nests you can find. But Schlaich has no problem with that. “These are birds that depend on cultivated land in their wintering areas in the Sahel, in Africa, as well as in their breeding grounds in Europe, because their original natural breeding habitat has disappeared.”
“As humans, we have changed that landscape enormously. From small-scale agriculture, fields have now become gigantic. Then isn’t it great if farmers want to work with us to protect those nests in the grain? It’s the only way these birds can survive.”
Not as endangered in the administration
The protectors of the knowledge center would prefer to see an official European species protection program set up, as already exists for various endangered animal species, with clear manuals on how to find nests and then protect them in the fields. “But on the basis of very outdated information, the Montagu’s Harrier is not yet listed as ‘endangered’ in the books. Old and not really reliable figures from Russia have entered the statistics, so people think that there are still enough harriers. But the reality is different,” says Schlaich. “Then there is only one thing to do: look for and protect nests every year. This is now also happening in many other European countries.”
From the size of the claws and the eye color of the last three fledglings this year, Schlaich has already seen that all three chicks are males. With a metal ring from the bird migration station and a long-distance colored ring with a code, F-3, F-4 and F-5, the birds return to the nest. “With a bit of luck, we will see them again as a breeding bird in the coming years,” the researcher hopes. At that moment, the mother of the record chicks is already hanging alarmingly above the nest with a fresh mouse in her claws.
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