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Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus

The hen harrier (Circus cyaneus) is a bird of prey. The genus name Circus is derived from Ancient Greek kirkos, meaning 'circle', referring to a bird of prey named for its circling flight. The specific cyaneus is Latin, meaning "dark-blue".

While many taxonomic authorities split the northern harrier and the hen harrier into distinct species, others consider them conspecific.

It breeds in northern Eurasia. The term "hen harrier" refers to its former habit of preying on free-ranging fowl.

It migrates to more southerly areas in winter. Eurasian birds move to southern Europe and southern temperate Asia, In the mildest regions, such as France and Great Britain.

Bird of prey, raptor

A bird of prey, predatory bird, or raptor is any of several species of bird that hunts and feeds on rodents and other small animals. The term raptor is derived from the Latin word rapere, meaning to seize or take by force. Birds of prey have keen vision that allows them to detect their prey during flight, as well as powerful talons and beaks.

Taken literally, the term bird of prey has a wide meaning that includes many birds that hunt and feed on animals and also birds that eat very small insects. Ornithology has a narrower definition of bird of prey: a bird that has very good eyesight for finding food, strong feet for holding food, and a strong curved beak for tearing flesh. Most birds of prey also have strong curved talons for catching or killing prey.

An example of this difference in definition, the narrower definition excludes storks and gulls, which can eat quite large fish, partly because these birds catch and kill prey entirely with their beaks, and similarly bird-eating skuas, fish-eating penguins, and vertebrate-eating Kookaburras are excluded. Birds of prey generally prey on vertebrates, which are usually quite large relative to the size of the bird. Most also eat carrion, at least occasionally, and vultures and condors eat carrion as their main food source.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus
Range of Hen Harrier

Description
The hen harrier is 41–52 cm long with a 97–122 cm wingspan. It resembles other harriers in having distinct male and female plumages. The sexes also differ in weight, with males weighing 290 to 400 g, with an average of 350 g , and females weighing 390 to 750 g, with an average of 530 g.

Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 32.8 to 40.6 cm, the tail is 19.3 to 25.8 cm and the tarsus is 7.1 to 8.9 cm. It is relatively long winged and long tailed, having the longest wing and tail relative to its body size of any raptor occurring in North America.

The male is mainly grey above and white below except for the upper breast, which is grey like the upperparts, and the rump, which is white; the wings are grey with black wingtips. The female is brown above with white upper tail coverts, hence females, and the similar juveniles, are often called "ringtails". Their underparts are buff streaked with brown.

In Eurasia, the adult male is sometimes nicknamed the "Grey Ghost", because of his striking plumage and spectral aura.

The female gives a whistled piih-eh when receiving food from the male, and her alarm call is chit-it-it-it-it-et-it. The male calls chek-chek-chek, with a more bouncing chuk-uk-uk-uk during his display flight.

Listen to the Hen Harrier

Remarks from the Recordist

This male was flying alone over a plot of forest in regeneration (suitable for nesting). Two females were seen later. A kind of courtship song (or call) produced with big excitement.

www.xeno-canto.org



Behaviour
This medium-sized raptor breeds on moorland, bogs, prairies, farmland coastal prairies, marshes, grasslands, swamps and other assorted open areas. A male will maintain a territory averaging 2.6 km2, though male territories have ranged from 1.7 to 150 km2.

These, are the one of the few raptorial birds known to practice polygyny – one male mates with several females. Up to five females have been known to mate with one male in a season. A supplementary feeding experiment on the Orkney islands showed that rates of polygyny were influenced by food levels; males provided with extra food had more breeding females than 'control' males that received no extra food.

The nest is built on the ground or on a mound of dirt or vegetation. Nests are made of sticks and are lined inside with grass and leaves. Four to eight (exceptionally 2 to 10) whitish eggs are laid. The eggs measure approximately 47 mm × 36 mm. The eggs are incubated mostly by the female for 31 to 32 days. When incubating eggs, the female sits on the nest while the male hunts and brings food to her and the chicks.

The male will help feed chicks after they hatch, but does not usually watch them for a greater period of time than around 5 minutes. The male usually passes off food to the female, which she then feeds to the young, although later the female will capture food and simply drop into the nest for her nestlings to eat.

The chicks fledge at around 36 days old, though breeding maturity is not reached until 2 years in females and 3 years in males.

In winter, the hen harrier is a bird of open country, and will then roost communally, often with merlins and marsh harriers. There is now an accepted record of transatlantic vagrancy by the northern harrier, with a juvenile being recorded in Scilly, Great Britain from October 1982 to June 1983.

Hunting behavior
This is a typical harrier, which hunts on long wings held in a shallow V in its low flight during which the bird closely hugs the contours of the land below it. Northern or hen harriers hunt primarily small mammals, as do most harriers. Up to 95% of the diet comprises small mammals.However, birds are hunted with some regularity as well, especially by males. Preferred avian prey include passerines of open country (i.e. sparrows, larks, pipits), small shorebirds and the young of waterfowl and galliforms.

Supplementing the diet occasionally are amphibians (especially frogs), reptiles and insects (especially orthopterans). The species has been observed to hunt bats if these are available.[11] Larger prey, such as rabbits and adult ducks are taken sometimes and harriers have been known to subdue these by drowning them in water.

Harriers hunt by surprising prey while flying low to the ground in open areas, as they drift low over fields and moors. The harriers circle an area several times listening and looking for prey. Harriers use hearing regularly to find prey, as they have exceptionally good hearing for diurnal raptors, this being the function of their owl-like facial disc.

This harrier tends to be a very vocal bird while it glides over its hunting ground.

Mortality and competition
Little information is available on longevity in hen harriers. The longest-lived known bird is 16 years and 5 months. However, adults rarely live more than 8 years. Early mortality mainly results from predation. Predators of eggs and nestlings include raccoons, skunks, badgers, foxes, crows and ravens, dogs and owls.

Both parents attack potential predators with alarm calls and striking with talons. Short-eared owls are natural competitors of this species that favor the same prey and habitat, as well as having a similarly broad distribution. Occasionally, both harriers and short-eared owls will harass each other until the victim drops its prey and it can be stolen, a practice known as kleptoparasitism. Most commonly, the harriers are the aggressors pirating prey from owls.

Status
This species has a large range. There is evidence of a population decline, but the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e., declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations). It is therefore classified as "least concern".

In the United Kingdom, however, hen harrier populations are in a critical condition, due to habitat loss and illegal killing on grouse moors. In 2012 only 617 pairs remained, representing a fall of 20% from 2004.

Relationship with humans
In some parts of Europe people believed that seeing a harrier perched on a house was a sign that three people would die. Unlike many raptors, hen harriers have historically been favorably regarded by farmers because they eat predators of quail eggs and mice that damage crops. Harriers are sometimes called "good hawks" because they pose no threat to poultry as some hawks do.

Forestry and hen harriers
The hen harrier is a bird of open habitats such as heather moorland and extensive agriculture. However, much of its range, particularly in Ireland and parts of western Britain, has been (and continues to be) afforested, predominantly with non-native conifers such as Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) from North America.

Hen harriers nest and forage in commercial forestry when it is young, before the canopy closes (typically at between 9–12 and years old), but do not make much use of thicket and subsequent growth stages, which typically comprise between ​2⁄3 and ​3⁄4 of the commercial growth cycle. Where forests replace habitats that were used by hen harriers they will therefore tend to reduce overall habitat availability.

However, where afforestation takes place in areas that were previously underutilised by hen harriers, it may increase the value of such areas to this species in the long-term. Areas dominated by forestry may remain suitable to hen harriers provided that a mosaic of age classes is maintained within the forest, such that areas of young, pre-thicket forest are always available.

Conservation status
Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

www.birdforum.net


Sighted: (Date of first photo that I could use) 18 January 2016
Location: Ramthanbhore Tiger Reserve, India


PLEASE! As I'm a first time birdwatcher bear in mind that some of the bird can be wrongly named. I have bought books and I confirm on the internet to get the right identity on the birds I take pictures off. But there can still be mistakes.

I have had most help from my friend, the bird pal I met at Suan Rot Fai. Sending pictures of birds I have not been able to identify to him via Line. 3 minutes later he and he have managed to identify most of the birds I have had problems with. THANKS! Visit his web page m☥lever for his beautiful pictures.

And my new aid, maybe, and I say maybe the best aid. I brought my mobile phone as my SIM card have stopped working and I tried to get it to work again so I can use the internet. Thus I had my phone in my pocket on my first game drive in Jim Corbett National Park.

We saw a bird and I asked my Guide and the driver if they had a pen and a paper as I had forgot my pen and paper in my room. I remembered my LG phone and I recorded the name. And thus I will always bring my phone. Writing the name in the car and I have found more than once that it can be hard to read what I had wrote when I'm back in my room.

So now I always have my mobile in my pocket and it has been a great help. And from November 2018 I use eBird. Bird watching in U.A.E and Oman and my guide in Dubai recommended eBird and I have used the app since then and I note every bird I can identify in my eBird app.

Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus
Hen Harrier - 18 January 2016 - Ramthanbhore Tiger Reserve

Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus
Hen Harrier - 18 January 2016 - Ramthanbhore Tiger Reserve

Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus
Hen Harrier - 18 January 2016 - Ramthanbhore Tiger Reserve

Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus
Hen Harrier - 18 January 2016 - Ramthanbhore Tiger Reserve

Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus
Hen Harrier - 18 January 2016 - Ramthanbhore Tiger Reserve

Hen Harrier, Circus cyaneus
Hen Harrier - 18 January 2016 - Ramthanbhore Tiger Reserve



PLEASE! If I have made any mistakes identifying any bird, PLEASE let me know on my guestbook



       
                  



                                       

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