Montagu's harrier rears six chicks in secret UK location

The UK's rarest bird of prey, the Montagu's harrier, has successfully reared six chicks at a secret location on English farmland for the second consecutive year. The breeding effort was led by a single male known as ‘AU’, who mated with two different females to produce three chicks in each of two separate nests.

Montagu's harriers were placed on a ‘red list’ of birds most at risk in the UK in 2021 following a significant decline in population. After a period with no evidence of successful breeding between 2020 and 2024, this recent success provides a boost to the species. Conservationists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) worked alongside local farmers to protect the nests using fences to exclude ground predators like foxes.

In a first for the species in the UK, researchers fitted two of the juvenile females with lightweight satellite tags. This technology aims to track their 7,000-mile annual migration to West Africa, helping scientists understand their migration routes and survival rates during their first year away from the UK.