I recently came across a copy of J. Lewis Bonhote’s British Birds, published 1907. The Hen Harrier is not illustrated but since the text includes the following …
In England, thanks to the game-preserver, this species is now extremely scarce, and very few pairs, if any, are allowed to nest.
… I thought these two illustrations would suffice.
This is one of the tragedies associated with the Hen Harrier, it has been made extinct on mainland UK one already. It is only because of the lack of game keepers during two world wars that they firstly colonised mainland Scotland again then had sufficient momentum to colonise England and Wales initially in the 1950s.
So the criminals of the grouse cabal have been at it for over one hundred years both legally initially and then illegally. The penalties have never been severe enough to allow proper detection. The intransigence of the grouse cabal is it seems still total despite their claims of zero tolerance or perhaps they meant zero tolerance of Harriers!
Time govt did something meaningful about it, its organised crime against a beautiful bird.