August 2013 Harriers on the move.. almost

The young birds are now at the pioneer stage of exnatal dispersal. By this stage we'd expect the young harriers to be fully independent, killing their own prey and making mock stoops at anything that moves. Sociality between adult females and their offspring has been recorded up to 30km from the nest, however, the majority of young harriers go it alone soon after they start to roost away from the nest. The data this year has provided a good opportunity to look at whether the broods from the different nests interacted and apart from one or two weak fixes, it appears that there was little overlap in their home ranges.

117316 Blue (male)
117315 Miranda (female)
117314 Hattie (female)
117313 Grainne (female)