Hawk and Owl Trust – don’t mention the Hen Harrier!

Rather bizarrely, the Hawk and Owl Trust does not mention the Hen Harrier in its Annual Report covering the period April 2016 – March 2017. Surely one of the H&OT’s project was, and still is, one of satellite-tagging Hen Harriers – didn’t they satellite tag two Hen Harriers at Langholm in the summer of 2016? …

Henry visits the CLA

Belgrave Square has rarely, if ever, seen a six-foot Hen Harrier before, but last week we visited the London HQ of the Country Land and Business Association. Henry said that it all looked very posh – much posher than the Scottish Land and Estates little office block. Henry gave his plumage a special preen to…

OK, Hawk and Owl Trust – where are you?

A recap: the Hawk and Owl Trust has, unbeknownst to most of its members, become very keen on Hen Harrier ‘brood management’ (known to many as brood meddling). This move has positioned the H&OT very strangely in one of the most contentious debates in UK conservation.  Rare Bird Alert held an online poll which showed…

Bit by bit, answers are emerging…

I’m grateful to the Chair of the Hawk and Owl Trust for some attempts to answer some queries posted here yesterday (see comment by Philip Merricks on this blog and an abridged version copied with my comments below). The Hawk and Owl Trust is, of course, under no obligation to answer questions on this blog…

Collaboration or collaborationism?

As I understand it, the non-joint non-plan for ‘managing’ the almost non-existent English breeding Hen Harrier population would have involved fiddling about with one of the nests in Bowland this year (had the landowner requested it). The two nests were ‘too close’ together despite the rather large gap to the next pair of breeding Hen…