Hen Harrier

Can be confused withSource

• Pallid Harrier — Male Pallid Harrier is paler still and shows only a black wedge out in the hand, isolated by white all round — no dark trailing edge. Male Hen Harrier is black right out to the wingtip, and that black continues into a dark trailing edge along the whole wing, arm included. Beware younger male Pallid: they can show a dark trailing edge on the arm, but the hand stays clean.
• — Male Montagu's Harrier has a black band across the secondaries and a three-toned upperside with a broader black hand than the other harriers; Hen Harrier has a uniform pale grey upperside and a black wingtip that runs on into a dark trailing edge along the whole wing. Montagu's hand is long and pointed with four "fingers" against Hen Harrier's five — but fingers are rarely counted in the field.
• — Marsh Harrier is bigger and heavier: the male variegated rufous with greyish secondaries, the female almost uniformly dark brown with a cream crown, nape and throat. Neither shows Hen Harrier's broad white rump, which male, female and immature all carry.

Plumage and variationSource

Male and female: The male is pale grey with a whitish underside, black wingtip and dark trailing edge. The female is brownish with a closely streaked underside, a conspicuous white rump and an almost owl-like facial disc; female and immature alike are called "ringtails" after the rump and the barred tail. The immature's body is a warmer yellow-brown than the female's.

BehaviourSource

Hunts open country over fields and meadows, low over the ground with much gliding. Prey is mostly small rodents, though it will take birds up to ptarmigan size. The nest is on the ground in bogs, on heaths or under a bush. In winter it is often seen waiting on a post or a tussock.

When and whereSource

Hen Harrier no longer breeds in Denmark: the Danish breeding population is assessed as gone (NA) on the 2019 Red List, DOF's raptor survey records zero breeding pairs in its census years, and the last confirmed attempts were near Ribe in 1998 and in Lille Vildmose in 2002-2003. It remains, however, a fairly common passage migrant and scarce winter visitor from the north, commonest in the east of the country. Where Marsh and Montagu's Harriers travel all the way to Africa, Hen Harrier stays in western and south-western Europe: a harrier seen here in the winter half-year is almost certainly this species. Numbers rise and fall with the good and bad rodent years in northern Scandinavia.

Facts

RelativesSource