Teesmouth Bird Club

Quote from: A McLee on March 15, 2012, 10:13:08 AM
Ian,
     This interesting behaviour of snatching voles nests speculatively from the ground as a novel way of hunting, may not have been recorded before, let alone photographed.
Have you thought of writing a brief note, plus photographs, to " British Birds" describing these observations?
Alistair McLee

I photographed exactly this behaviour Oct, Nov, Dec 2011,  Jan, Feb 2012
The county recorder of DBC was informed sometime in November 2011, I also relayed the same info to Ian earlier this year regarding two immature birds in Durham.

This behaviour has been witnessed multiple times over the years by Lord Barnard's keepers in Weardale, so, not new behaviour, recorded AND photographed already.


The foto is an immature rufus bird.


.

Sorry Dave, I recall you mentioning the Hen Harriers up your way on private land, but not any description of any behaviour regards picking up balls of grass.

This was totally new to me and many others it would seem.

Good to hear though you've also documented the same behaviour elsewhere.

Quote from: IanF on March 16, 2012, 08:08:54 PM
Sorry Dave, I recall you mentioning the Hen Harriers up your way on private land, but not any description of any behaviour regards picking up balls of grass.

This was totally new to me and many others it would seem.

Good to hear though you've also documented the same behaviour elsewhere.

No botha at all Ian, not having a go at you mate, I cant even remember what day it is at times.   

(For your notes.)

Ian, the next time you go to photograph this bird watch when it picks up a vole nest it will either strip it on the wing or take both the nest and its prey back to its larder that is usually out of the way of prying eyes, the ones that I watched there was usually a buzzard parked up on a vantage point ready to rob the bird of its prey after it had hidden it, (on the bank side of a nearby dyke is what I noticed)

When it takes the whole lot it will use the nests to cover the larder up, it would seem that every single raptor that either happened upon the harriers or watch them would have a go at robbing them, they also seemed to spend a lot of time hunting from a low branch or even more hours on the ground often lifting with the odd victim and back to its larder (bright sunny days) when it would turn very cold they would often just stay on the ground out of the way. (loads more but I am off out, good luck m8)

Still around this afternoon but never came close.

It came out at 5.00pm this evening and was more or less in sight for the next hour though at least 35mins it was sat in the grass following it's third kill.

Giving good views again this morning.

Still present this morning, though I'm not sure that I may have witnessed it's departure.

At 12.00 the Hen Harrier began to soar on thermals from ground level. By 12.16 it was still overhead but so high it was no longer visible even through binoculars.


I've seen birds of prey do this before and sometimes return but more often on departing an area.

Quote from: A McLee on March 15, 2012, 10:13:08 AM
Ian,
     This interesting behaviour of snatching voles nests speculatively from the ground as a novel way of hunting, may not have been recorded before, let alone photographed.
Have you thought of writing a brief note, plus photographs, to " British Birds" describing these observations?
Alistair McLee

Just an update. It's taken a while but I've just heard back from British Birds after they circulated the article around several interested parties. They were very interested in hearing about this documented behaviour of the Hen Harrier picking up balls of grass. A short article will be appearing in due course.

If you scroll back to March 16th on the forum page you will see i put some video out of this behavior on another date at the same site. When we were on the Harrier nest watch we saw this behavior all the time. Dave Johnson also mentioned on March the 15th on the forum that himself and others have seen the same behavior quite often.

Yes, this bird and the ones Dave saw seem well adept at doing this. It sounds like this behaviour isn't that well known elsewhere.

You got some great footage of the Harrier Paul.

Here's a link to Pauls post in case anyone else missed it - http://www.teesmouthbc.com/forumtbc/index.php?topic=4264.0