Rich,
She was born last summer in a small little bog, nice and quiet.
Lissycasey if you want to check it on Google Earth.
She hatched out around the second week of June, and would have been just 42 weeks on 1st April 2010. She was first sighted in your fair Wales on 2nd October on Ramsey, so it seems after spending her winter around Marloes Mere and Skomer she was heading back the direction she came, and probably was crossing the Irish Sea in those strong North-westerlies and rain to make it back to her home and hopefully become one of our breeding population and see her first sky dancing which is what she was born for.
It is a sad loss. --
(yellow 7 was found along the tide line nr. St David's 1st April 2010),
We could have really done with her too. She has however provided invaluable information for her colleague's conservation. She has informed us that (I think) a great amount of birds you are respsonsible for in Wales each Autumn and Winter are from Ireland, and the breeding population increase in Wales may have been helped by recruits from Ireland. She has shown us the importance of an international approach to conservation of these finest of birds. She has shown us that perhaps one of the reasons why we are not getting a large amount of recruits into our breeding population (apart from habitat loss and limited availability of such), is because many of our young are heading off abroad and not all will make it back (whether by choice or in this brave soul's case by misfortune). If she had waited on a few more days she would have had plain sailing and I would probably be watching her now.
Lets just hope we can all work together to make sure we give all Hen Harriers a chance to make it, by documenting their activities and informing conservation methods, most particularly through habitat management and conservation.
Barry O'Donoghue,
Hen Harrier Research, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Eire