‘Miranda’, one of this year’s four satellite-tagged hen harriers from Langholm, has been tracked to the Irish Republic.
She’d been hanging around at Leadhills for a couple of weeks, which was a cause for concern (see here), but she managed to get out alive and headed south to Dumfries & Galloway, before jumping over to the Isle of Man and then onwards to Ireland.
She’s a good example of why we’re not only interested in persecution incidents that take place in Scotland – relentless and systematic raptor persecution in any part of our isles, be it in Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic has the potential for knock-on-population-level effects elsewhere.
Incredibly, all four sat-tagged Langholm harriers are still alive as we reach mid-October.
Well done Cat Barlow at Making the Most of Moorlands for publicising these harriers’ journeys.
Follow their movements here.
Raptor Persecution UK 
She deserves ‘Dickin Medal’ for getting out of Leadhills alive!
Shame the other 6 were not radio tagged as well. Please do not say cost as money has been spent [allegedly] damaging the SSSI at Langholm.
http://langholmmoorland.blogspot.co.uk/
Bad news about Blue
Sad, sad news .. we have serious concerns about Blue (the young male Hen Harrier satellite tagged at Langholm this summer). Blue’s satellite tag signal has ceased to transmit. The signal ended suddenly, without indication in the data of why it should do so. The most likely explanation is illegal persecution. There are other possible explanations, such as a natural death or some kind of tag failure but they are considerably less likely.
The matter is now in the hands of the police
Aye, Shropshire may just have been too close to the killing grounds of the Welsh borderlands.